


Queen of the Dead

by smac89



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Ghosts, Immortality, Loki is an anti-villain, Loki's A+ Parenting, Multi, Necromancy, Odin's A+ Parenting, fucked up families, thor is not an idiot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-04
Updated: 2017-11-09
Packaged: 2018-09-06 10:33:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 31,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8747152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smac89/pseuds/smac89
Summary: She shouldn't have survived the crash that killed her husband, but she did. The dreams started a year later, and after that, it just got weirder. Turns out, she has a Gift. She got that from her mother. The immunity to cold? She got that from her father.





	1. Origin Story

**Author's Note:**

> I have no right to be starting this while I'm still working on "The Impossible Year," but I got this itch I gotta scratch. Besides, sometimes it's nice to work on something different for a while. The first chapter is a little odd, but just bear with me. Our favorite characters will show up soon enough, I promise.
> 
> To be clear: This story has no connection whatsoever with "The Yggdrasil Chronicles." It is a whole separate universe with a separate interpretation of the characters. It does, however, share my opinion that Loki is not quite the supervillain he would like us to think he is. He as a soft spot, much to his chagrin, and that would be his children.

_ On the road to Zurich, Switzerland, 1969 _

 

The snow was coming down so thick that the headlights of the Opel Kapitän barely illuminated the road ahead. The road was narrow and unpaved, climbing up and down a rocky spine of hills leading northeast. The car’s driver was a man, blonde-haired and gray-eyed, wearing a nice suit and a pair of expensive driving gloves. His companion was a black-haired woman with an olive complexion and black eyes, buried under so many blankets she was little more than a shapeless mound of quilts. 

 

Irritated at the weight of the blankets, the woman began to peel them away one by one, shoving them down into the footwell. The man reached over with one hand to stop her.

 

“No, don’t do that,” he said sharply. “You’ll get a chill. You need to stay healthy, darling.”

 

“I’m  _ fine _ , Armin,” the woman protested. “I’m not even a little cold. The blankets are sweltering.”

 

“Elle, we talked about this,” Armin said. “We’re not going to risk anything. We want you to be in perfect health when we see the specialist.”

 

Elle sighed. “I know, but do I really need  _ this _ many blankets?”

 

“It’s 13 degrees below zero out there,” Armin replied. “I don’t want us to make the trip all the way to Zurich only for you to catch pneumonia.”

 

“Fine,” Elle said, exasperated, and piled the blankets back on. She settled further in her seat with a grimace. “What about you? Aren’t you cold?”

 

Armin gave her a carefree grin. “Oh, you know me, darling. I’m a man. I wouldn’t admit I was cold if I was naked in a blizzard.”

 

“Men,” Elle said, shaking her head.

 

They fell quiet for a few moments, and then Armin said solemnly, “It’ll work this time, Elle. I know it will.”

 

“I hope so,” Elle said softly. “We’ve been trying for so long.”

 

Armin and Elle had been married for seven years, and in that time, their hopes for a child had not been realized. Elle had just turned twenty-six, and their window of opportunity was closing fast. Armin was an only child, and his aging parents had not given up on having a brood of grandchildren underfoot. Armin wanted nothing more than to provide them with one. Elle, of course, wanted to make Armin happy.

 

They had seen doctors in Geneva, Lucerne, and even Milan, but to no avail. This trip was quite literally their last hope. Armin’s family was wealthy, but even their resources could stretch only so far. If the specialists in Zurich failed, then that would be the end of the road.

 

“You know,” Elle said after another moment of silence. “We could think about adopting. St Anna’s always has plenty of children, even some babies. That’s where I was raised, you know.”

 

“I know,” Armin said. “But I don’t know if I could really bond with a child that’s not mine, Elle. I’m not saying we should write it off, but we have to try everything we can first. You understand?”

 

Elle sighed again. “I understand,” she said unhappily. She turned to look out the frosted window, and freed one hand so she could wipe away the condensation.

 

Armin reached over to pat her shoulder. “You’re not mad at me, are you darling?” he asked. “I don’t mean to speak ill of your upbringing. You know I love you anyway, don’t you?”

 

“Yes, yes,” Elle said, a bit shortly. “Of course I know you love me  _ despite _ being an orphan and being raised in an orphanage instead of the lap of luxury.”

 

“Darling, don’t be like that,” Armin chided. “You know I don’t care you came from an orphanage. And you know my parents don’t mind, either.”

 

Elle pressed her lips together. “Yes, I know,” she finally admitted. “But your family’s friend’s could take a few hints from you and your parents.”

 

“Oh, they don’t care that you’re from an orphanage,” Armin said teasingly. “They don’t like you because you’re Romani.”

 

Elle snorted. “I am certain that Aloisia is afraid I’ll put a curse on her.”

 

“That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. You are as Catholic as the rest of us,” Armin said.

 

“I know, but it is funny to watch her twitch every time I light a candle,” Elle said with a small smile.

 

Armin chuckled. “Well, Aloisia could do with some fear in her life. She’s a stuck-up bitch, and her husband’s no better.”

 

“Then why do we have to have lunch with them every Friday?” Elle asked, rolling her eyes.

 

“You know why,” Armin told her. “Her father and my father were business partners after the War.”

 

Elle nodded but didn’t say anything. Armin’s father, before his retirement, had been a lawyer, and had made a name for himself prosecuting Nazi war criminals. It was one of the things that Elle loved about her married family, as she had been born in a concentration camp during the War, and her mother had died there. At least, that’s what the sisters at St Anna’s had told her.

 

Elle had been smuggled out of the concentration camp by a determined Polish midwife who had done the same thing for several other infants born at the camp. She would attend the birth, inform the guards the child had died, and carry it safely out of the camp to the arms of the underground who helped get Jews and other undesirables out of harm’s way. Even twenty-four years after the war had ended, however, there was still ingrained distrust of anyone not of certain Swiss stock.

 

The snow swirled thicker outside the car, and they reached a bridge over a frozen river. On one side it was a drop to the water, on the other was the rocky side of a steep hill. Just as they reached the center of the bridge, a four-legged figure leapt from the rocky face of the hill into the roadway.

 

Elle had half a second to identify it as a chamois before Armin cursed and slammed on the brakes. The locked wheels had no traction on the snow-covered bridge, and the car began to spin. Elle screamed as the car slammed sidelong into the railing and plunged over the side of the bridge, crashing through the ice to the water below.

 

The car didn’t immediately sink. Elle, who’d been protected from the worst of the crash by her mound of blankets, had enough time to gasp for breath and turn to look for her husband. Armin was slumped over the wheel, blood pouring from his forehead. Water began to rush into the car, shockingly cold. Elle was able to take a deep breath, and then the water consumed her.

 

It was surprisingly quiet under the water. It was almost peaceful. And the cold didn’t bother Elle as much as she thought it would. She struggled out from the pile of blankets, losing her shoes in the process. The windshield was already cracked from the impact, so she braced herself against the back of the front seat and kicked it all the way out. She grabbed Armin by the arm and pushed off the back of the seat, getting them both out of the car.

 

Armin was limp and  _ heavy _ , and Elle’s heavy woolen clothing threatened to drag her down, but she kicked and kicked as hard as she could. She could see the hole in the ice the car had made. In fact, she could see quite well under the water, despite the dimness of light that filtered through the snow and the ice. It was so calm and peaceful under the water. Maybe she should just let herself sink, let the water envelop her. She was so  _ tired _ , now…

 

_ No _ . She had to fight, had to get to the surface. She couldn’t give up, not now. She and Armin were going to have a whole houseful of happy, bouncing children. They were going to grow old together and spoil their grandchildren and have a garden to grow flowers and vegetables and maybe a goat and a few chickens.

 

Elle’s head broke the surface of the water and she gasped in the first breath in what felt like a lifetime. She hauled Armin’s head out of the water as well, hooking her arm underneath his. She tread water for a moment, trying to catch her breath.

 

Slowly, Elle pulled her husband to the edge of the hole in the ice, and tried to lift him up onto it. It took her several tries, but finally she was able to roll him onto the ice, and it was thick enough to hold him. She slithered up after him and lay on the ice gasping for a few moments.

 

Why was she not cold? She felt wet, and rather uncomfortable, but she should be freezing. This was not a good sign. She was already in shock. No doubt she was hypothermic already. But Armin… he had a head wound, and there was no telling how much water he’d breathed in. She pushed herself upright and leaned over her husband, fumbling at his throat. His skin was as cold as the water they’d just gotten out of, and she felt no pulse.

 

“No, no, no,” Elle whispered, and lowered her face so her cheek hovered above his mouth. There was no breath on her skin. “No, Armin, you can’t do this to me.” She sat back up. The wound in his head was not bleeding anymore, and she could see how bad it was. His skull itself was indented above his right eyebrow.

 

“Armin!” Elle called, her voice breaking. “ _ Armin _ , please, wake up! I need you to wake up!” She shook him by the shoulders, pleading with him to respond, to no avail. She shook him harder, tears pouring hot down her cheeks. 

 

“ _ Armin _ !”

 

XxxXxxX

 

In a small cottage on the outskirts of Bremgarten, Filibert Weber and his wife Hermine were preparing to settle in for a long, snowy night. They were used to being snowed in for days at a time during the winter, and had enough food and water set by to last until the roads cleared and they could get to town again. They had just finished supper and were about to put the leftover food in the cellar when they heard a somewhat timid knock on the door.

 

Filibert looked at his wife in shock. “Who could _possibly_ be out in this weather?” he asked.

 

She shrugged back at him. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s one of the Müllers and they ran out of something.”

 

“Surely the Müllers aren’t stupid enough to try walking all the way over here in that storm,” Filibert protested.

 

“Well, whoever it is, they’re going to freeze to death if you don’t answer the door,” Hermine retorted.

 

Filibert shook his head at her and shuffled over to the door. He lifted the latch and cracked it open an inch so he could peer outside. To his deep surprise, there was a woman standing on his front step. Her long, wool coat was completely encased in ice, as was the scarf around her dark hair. There was ice encrusted on her eyelashes, and her lips were deep blue.

 

“P-p-please,” she stuttered in a weak voice. “Please help me.”

 

Filibert pulled the door open further. “Dear Saint Peter, woman. Hurry, come inside! Come, come!”

 

The woman mostly fell into the house, her clothing so stiff with ice she could barely move. Hermine shrieked at the sight of her and rushed forward. “Oh, you poor child,” she cooed. “Come now, off with that coat.”

 

It took both Hermine and Filibert to wrestle the frozen coat off the woman, only to find that her clothing underneath was also frozen solid.

 

“Filibert, get the fire going as hot as you can,” Hermine ordered. “And get every blanket we have in the house. Put some water in the kettle, too.”

 

As Hermine attacked the woman’s clothing, Filibert hurried about his appointed tasks. Hermine tutted to herself as she undressed the woman. “I’ve never seen anything like this before,” she said. “How did you get yourself into such a state, child?”

 

“The c-car,” the woman stammered. “Drove off a b-b-bridge.”

 

Hermine stopped what she was doing, staring at the woman in surprise. “You went into the water?” she demanded. The woman nodded. “You went into the water, and then you walked here?” Hermine asked. “How far?”

 

“I d-don’t know,” the woman chattered.

 

“Dear Lord in Heaven,” Hermine muttered. “How did you survive?”

 

The woman had no answer for her.

 

Hermine finally managed to strip the woman down the her shift and sat her in front of the stove in the kitchen, wrapped in every blanket Filibert could find. Hermine gave her a cup of hot tea to sip, and wrapped a towel around the woman’s thawing hair so it wouldn’t drip.

 

The woman’s lips were losing their blue color, but her skin was still ice-cold to the touch. Hermine dragged a stool over to sit next to the woman. “What’s your name, love?” she asked gently.

 

“Elle Braun,” the woman replied, staring into her cup.

 

“Were you alone, Elle?” Hermine asked. 

 

“No,” Elle said brokenly, and then she began to cry softly. “My husband, Armin… he didn’t survive.”

 

“Oh, child,” Hermine said, leaning forward to hug the young woman. “Oh, child, it’s alright. You’re safe now.”

 

XxxXxxX

 

_ St Anne’s Orphanage, Bern, Switzerland, 1970 _

 

“It’s been so long since you last visited, dear,” Sister Maria Clemens said in a dry, wheezing voice as she walked arm-in-arm with Elle Braun in the cloister around the garden.

 

“I know,” Elle said softly. “I am sorry, Sister.”

 

They were walking at a pace suitable for Sister Maria Clemens’ creaky joints, and the Sister had to lean on Elle’s arm for balance.

 

“So much has happened since you were last here,” Maria Clemens went on. “You should have come sooner, child.”

 

“Yes, I should have,” Elle agreed again. Like the Sister, Elle was dressed mostly in black, as it had only been three months since Armin’s death.

 

“Did you come here for solace, my dear?” Sister Maria Clemens asked. “If you seek it, you will find peace here.”

 

“I know I would,” Elle said with a sad smile. “But I’m not here for peace, Sister.”

 

They reached a low stone bench and Maria Clemens carefully lowered herself down and patted the seat next to her. Elle sat with a sigh.

 

“Then why  _ are _ you here, child?”

 

Elle stared out at the garden, just beginning to bloom into springtime. “Where did I come from, Sister?” she asked abruptly.

 

Maria Clemens peered up at Elle with rheumy eyes. “Why do you ask that, Elle? You know where you come from.”

 

Elle shook her head. “You told me I was born in one of the concentration camps. You told me how I was saved, but what about my parents? Do you know who they were? Where did they come from?”

 

“They were Romani,” Maria Clemens said, patting Elle’s hand. “That is what the midwife told the smugglers. Why do you ask these questions, child?”

 

Elle sighed, placing her hand over Maria Clemen’s thin, bony one. “When Armin died,” her voice caught slightly, but she forged on. “We both went into the water. I pulled us out. Then I walked  _ thirteen _ miles in the storm, soaking wet, completely frozen, to find help. I shouldn’t have survived that, Sister. There is no way a human could have survived that.”

 

“It would seem that God saw fit to save you, child. Miracles do happen, you know.”

 

Elle shook her head. “I know that, Sister, but this is different. I want--I  _ need _ to know. Who am I?  _ What _ am I?”

 

Maria Clemens squinted at Elle. “Do you think you are something other than human? You know that is not possible.”

 

Elle shrugged. “I just feel, if I knew where I was from, then maybe I would find answers.”

 

Maria Clemens hummed to herself and thought for several long moments. “You were born in  Płaszów, a camp in Krakow.”

 

Elle perked up, turning eagerly to the Sister. Maria Clemens thought for a few more moments, and then continued. “The midwife’s name is Bogdana Gorski. As far as I know, she still lives in Krakow. She never said anything about your mother. If you truly want to know where you came from, you find her.”

 

Elle took a deep breath. “Thank you, Sister.”

 

Maria clemens patted Elle’s hand again. “I hope you find your answers, child.”

 

XxxXxxX

 

_ Krakow, Poland, 1970 _

 

The tenement building was a squat, concrete edifice squashed between two modern brick apartment buildings. It still showed damage left over from the War that no one had ever bothered to fix. Elle stood on the steps outside the main building, clutching a scrap of paper with the building’s address scribbled on it. Taking a deep breath, she strode up to the door and opened it.

 

The inside of the building was dim, despite the bright sunshine outside. This was due to the lack of windows and the barely-functioning electric lights that had been retrofitted into the building. There was a faint dampness that the brisk spring air couldn’t dispel.

 

Elle found the correct apartment and hesitated again. What was she going to find? It didn’t matter. She needed to know the truth. She knocked twice, loudly, and stepped back to wait. After only a few seconds, the door opened, and a petite woman with a mane of curly, snow-white hair peered up at Elle.

 

“ _ Kim jesteś? _ ” the woman demanded in a sharp voice.

 

“I-I’m sorry,” Elle stuttered. “I don’t speak Polish. Do you speak German?”

 

The woman scowled. “Yes, yes, I speak. What do you want?”

 

“Are you Bogdana Gorski?” Elle asked.

 

“What you want with old Bogdana?” the woman asked, squinting suspiciously up at Elle.

 

“You were a midwife at Płaszów Camp, during the War,” Elle said.

 

The woman’s face slowly cleared. “Yes,” she said slowly. “Yes, I was.”

 

Elle smiled shakily. “I’m one of the babies you saved. I was hoping we could talk.”

 

The old woman’s face broke out into a gap-toothed smile. “Oh, yes! Yes, come in, come in!” She swung the door open and beckoned.

 

The apartment inside was small, neat, and cozy. Elle found herself sitting on a old but clean pink sofa in front of the fireplace, with a cup of coffee in one hand and a plate of biscuits in the other. Bogdana Gorski sat on a wooden chair to the side and leaned forward eagerly.

 

“Let me look at you, child. Oh, you’re a pretty one. Yes, such a nice girl you grew into. One of mine, you say? When? What year you born?”

 

“1943,” Elle replied, setting the plate of biscuits down so she could curl her hands around the cup of coffee.

 

Bogdana shook her head. “1943. Bad year. Only three babies make it out that year. Two boys, and you. I remember you, all little and dark. When you were born, I thought for sure you were dead for truth. But then you started breathing, and you screamed! Yes, how you screamed. I thought, good lungs for a dead baby.”

 

“Did you know my mother?” Elle asked, hardly daring to hope. “And my father, did you know him? Did you know their names?”

 

Bogdana shook her head again. “No, no father. He was not at camp. Dead already or another camp, I never knew. Your mother, though. Pretty girl. Charani Kalderash. Romani. The other gypsies said she was a  _ chovexani _ , a witch.”

 

“A witch?” Elle asked curiously, leaning forward and forgetting her coffee.

 

Bogdana nodded slowly. “Yes. The other gypsies, they did not trust her. They said she was  _ marime _ , unclean. They said she heard voices of the dead.”

 

Elle blinked. “That can’t possibly be true,” she said flatly.

 

Bogdana shrugged. “They say many things at the camps. Maybe she did, maybe not. Who knows, now?”

 

“What happened to her?” Elle demanded.

 

Bogdana leaned back. “Now that, that is interesting story. I was midwife at that camp until 1944. My last baby, I took him from the camp, out of Krakow. Took me three days. When I return, camp is gone.”

 

Elle frowned. “What do you mean,  _ gone _ ?”

 

Bogdana shrugged. “Gone. No more camp. Buildings all burned to ground. All guards dead. I counted the bodies. All the guards, dead.”

 

“And the prisoners?” Elle asked. “What happened to them?”

 

Bogdana shrugged again. “No sign. All gone. No dead prisoners. We thought, Red Army had come, but no, there was no Red Army, no Americans, no British. Just dead Nazis and burned camp. I leave. I did not want to go there again. I stay away long time. Only return five years ago after my husband passed.”

 

Elle was quiet for a long time, mulling over this new information. She had a name. Her mother’s name was Charani Kalderash. But what about her father? What had happened to them? What had happened to Płaszów? She had travelled all this way only to find more questions.

 

“Thank you, Mrs Gorski,” Elle said sincerely. “You’ve been very helpful.”

 

“You’re not happy, I see,” Bogdana said. She leaned forward and studied Elle’s face with bright blue eyes. “You still have questions, yes?”

 

Elle nodded. “Yes,” she admitted.

 

Bogdana nodded back. “Yes. I heard that there are Kalderash in Wieliczka. I don’t know if right Kalderash, but maybe they know more.”

 

Elle took a deep breath. “That’s wonderful news, Mrs Gorski. Thank you so much.”

 

XxxXxxX

 

_ Kalderash Encampment, Wieliczka, Poland, 1970 _

 

It had taken two buses and a potato truck to get Elle out to the encampment. She didn’t speak more than a few words of Polish, and most people in these parts didn’t speak German, so communication was difficult. However, she felt her spirits rise at the sight of the gathered round-topped carts.

 

The people milling about between the carts, tending to their chores, were sturdy-built people with swarthy complexions and colorful clothing. As Elle approached, a few took notice of her, and one or two children darted away deeper into the camp. By the time she reached the edge of the camp, there was a middle-aged man and a few younger men waiting for her.

 

The middle-aged man asked her a question in Romani, but Elle shook her head. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand you. Do you speak German? Or English?”

 

The man nodded. “I speak German, yes. What do you want, Miss? What are you doing here?”

 

“My name is Elle Braun,” Elle told him. “At least, that’s my married name. My mother was Romani. Her name was Charani Kalderash, and she was imprisoned at Płaszów in 1943. I was hoping you knew something of her.”

 

The man looked her up and down, taking in her neat, expensive clothing, her dark hair and darker eyes, her olive skin that was a match for their own. He slowly nodded. “We have a  _ puri daj _ who was at Płaszów. Maybe she knows this Charani Kalderash of yours.”

 

“Thank you,” Elle breathed, and followed eagerly when they led her through the camp to a house-cart near the center, where an old woman draped with several shawls spun wool between her fingers by a fire.

 

“ _ Puri daj _ ,” the man said. “This woman says she’s the daughter of a Kalderash, one who was at Płaszów. Maybe you knew her.”

 

The old woman looked up at Elle with black, glittering eyes, as sharp as a crow’s. Her hair, once black, was steel gray, but thick, caught up in a braid around her head. She spoke sharply in Romani, and the man rolled his eyes.

 

“She says we are being bad hosts,” he translated. “She says to sit and get warm. She will tell you what she can.”

 

Elle was sitting by the fire, balancing a bowl of soup and a chunk of bread on her knees, within a matter of seconds.

 

The man, whose name turned out to be Hedji, spoke to the old woman in Romani for a few minutes, and then the woman nodded. She started to speak, pausing every now and again to let Hedji translate.

 

“I remember Charani Kalderash,” she said through Hedji. “We travelled in the same  _ kumpania _ before the War. She was our herbalist, our  _ drabarni _ . She had the gift.”

 

“Gift?” Elle interrupted. “What do you mean, gift?”

 

“She spoke to the dead,” the old woman replied. “She laid them to rest so their ghosts would not follow us on the long road. She talked to the ancestors on the feast-nights, gave them news of the children and our travels.”

 

Elle frowned. “That’s not possible. You can’t talk to the dead.”

 

The old woman gave Elle a quelling look. “You young people. You don’t remember the old ways anymore. Charani was  _ drabarni _ , and she was  _ zuhno _ , pure, until the  _ gadjo _ came.”

 

“ _ Gadjo _ ?” Elle echoed.

 

“Outsider,” Hedji translated. The old woman nodded and continued. “He said he came to learn from Charani, to learn to speak to the dead. Charani did not want to teach him, we did not want him among us, but he seduced us with many gifts. Gold, food, horses. He gave us everything we desired, and finally Charani agreed to teach him. He travelled with us many months, and he and Charani were always together, speaking secrets to each other. By the time we realized what was happening, it was too late. The  _ gadjo _ left, and Charani was  _ marime _ . She was carrying his child when we were taken to Płaszów.”

 

Elle swallowed. So, she was not just an orphan, she was illegitimate, as well. Not the story she had hoped to hear, but it was better than nothing. Still, it did not explain how she had managed to survive hypothermia and frostbite.

 

“What happened at the camp?” Elle asked. “Who killed the guards?”

 

The old woman stopped spinning, her face growing pale. She shook her head. “It was a year after Charani birthed her child. They told us the child died. Charani was heartbroken, but we told her it was for the best. The camp was no place for the child, especially one with a  _ gadjo _ father.”

 

Elle frowned, but said nothing as the woman went on.

 

“Then one morning, we saw the  _ gadjo _ . He was inside the camp, walking around as if he had no cares. The guards didn’t even notice him. He found us, found Charani. When he saw how we were treated, when he heard that Charani’s baby had died…” the old woman trailed off, shaking her head. Her voice dropped to a whisper.

 

“He made us go inside the barracks, all the Kalderash. Told us to bar the doors with whatever we had, and not let anyone inside. We stayed inside, waiting… and then the screaming started. The screams… no human could have made those sounds. It was like the mouth of Hell opened up. The lasted for so long… some of the women fainted. It was a nightmare. Then the screaming stopped, and he was inside the barracks, even though we had barricaded the door. When he led us outside…”

 

The woman shivered, the memory still terrifying to her. “All the guards were dead. All of them. Some were in pieces. Some were burned to ashes. How could one man kill so many men with guns, all alone? He led us out, all the prisoners, and then he burned the camp to the ground. He took us away, into Red Russia, gave us gold and horses. Then he took Charani away, and we never saw either of them again.”

 

The old woman shivered again. “He was  _ bengalo _ , the devil. And his child was  _ bengalo _ , too.” Here she stared hard at Elle. “If you are truly Charani’s child, then it is good you were taken away. You would have brought death and curses down on our  _ kumpania _ . You should go now,  _ bengalo _ child. We do not need your evil here.”

 

Elle set the ignored bowl of soup on the ground hard enough to spill the contents. “Thank you for the information,” she said stiffly. “I’ll be happy to leave. I just have one last question. My father. What was his name?”

  
The woman continued to stare at Elle, unblinking with her crow-like eyes. “His name,” she said ominously, “Was Loki.”


	2. Power Struggle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, friends! Thank you for being indulgent in my diversion. I have been kicking this story around for a while now, and it is good to get it down, and to find that people actually like it. If any of you are hardcore Norse Mythology buffs, I apologize now, because I am cannibalizing that shit for all it's worth. Also, please note: as with all of my stories, tags will change as the story progresses, so please be aware of that. Thanks, and happy reading!

_ St Anna’s Orphanage, Bern, Switzerland, 1970 _

 

Elle was on the third decade of her nightly rosary when she must have fallen asleep. She was kneeling on the thin rug beside her bed, counting the beads between her fingers, when she realized she wasn’t alone. She frowned. She hadn’t heard the door open behind her. She opened her eyes and looked around the spartan room.

 

“Hello, darling,” Armin said softly from where he stood in the corner.

 

Elle was too shocked to scream. She fell backwards, bruising her tailbone against the stone floor, and stared at her late husband, mouth hanging open. Armin stepped forward and knelt on the rug in front of her, peering at her with concerned, gray eyes.

 

“I’m dreaming,” Elle realized numbly. Of course. She had fallen asleep during her prayers. There could be no other explanation.

 

“I don’t know,” Armin said.

 

Elle reached out a shaking hand and touched Armin’s cheek. His skin was smooth, soft, but it held no temperature. It was not cold, it was simply… nothing. “How are you here?” she whispered.

 

“I don’t know,” Armin admitted. “I was somewhere else, and then I felt you, and then I was here.”

 

“Somewhere else?” Elle echoed. “Where? Where were you, Armin?”

 

He thought about that for a moment. “I don’t remember. Wherever it was, it was peaceful.”

 

Elle pressed her hand to her mouth to cover a sob. “Oh,  _ Armin _ . I miss you so much.”

 

It was Armin’s turn to touch her cheek. His fingers felt the same, no temperature at all. “My darling Elle,” he murmured with a sad smile. “I miss you too, my dear.”

 

“I should be with you,” Elle told him, her voice breaking. “I should have died in the crash, too.”

 

“No,” Armin said sharply. “No, Elle. That’s not what I wanted. I want you to live. I want you to  _ survive _ . You must. You are still young. You have time. You can learn to move on.”

 

“I don’t want to,” Elle insisted. “I want to be with you, Armin.”

 

Armin took her hands in his. “Listen to me, my darling,” he said earnestly. “You cannot give up. You cannot lose your will to live. You  _ must _ press on. My parents, they still need you. How are they? How are they doing?”

 

“They struggle,” Elle said, fighting to regain control of herself. “They miss you.”

 

“And now they need you more than ever,” Armin told her. “They have no one else to care for them. Promise me you will look after them, Elle.”

 

“I promise,” Elle whispered, looking down at their joined hands.

 

Armin squeezed her hands once and relaxed. “How long has it been?” he asked. “Time… time doesn’t seem to mean anything here.”

 

“One year,” Elle told him. “Tomorrow is the anniversary.”

 

Armin nodded. “What have you been doing?”

 

Elle took a deep breath. “I… I went looking for my parents,” she said.

 

Armin brightened. “Did you? What did you find?”

 

“My mother’s name was Charani Kalderash,” Elle said. “My father’s name was Loki. My mother, she survived the camp. My father rescued her. He took her away somewhere. I don’t know.”

 

Armin stared at her for a moment. “Why don’t you find her?” he asked.

 

Elle blinked a few times. “What?” she asked stupidly.

 

Armin leaned forward. “Darling, she can’t be more than fifty. Sixty at the most. You should find her. Maybe you have siblings. Isn’t that what you have always wanted? A family?”

 

Elle shook her head. “I don’t even know where to begin!”

 

“That doesn’t sound like my Elle,” Armin chided gently. “You have always been so stubborn, my dear. You can do anything you set your mind to.”

 

“What about your parents? Don’t you want me to care for them?” Elle asked.

 

Armin smiled faintly. “They are healthy. They will wait for you. Go, Elle. Find your mother. Maybe she will bring you peace.”

 

Elle couldn’t stop the tears that leaked onto her cheeks. “I love you,” she whispered.

 

“And I love you,” Armin told her. “I did and I always will.” He leaned forward and kissed her cheek. “I must go now, darling.”

 

“No!” Elle protested. “No, please, Armin. Don’t go!”

 

“I cannot stay forever,” Armin said gently. He let go of her hands. “Don’t grieve forever, Elle. Find someone. Fall in love again. Do this for me.”

 

“No, I won’t,” Elle insisted. “I will never, Armin.”

 

He smiled again, sadly, and between one blink of her eyes and the next, he was gone. Elle stayed where she was, sitting on the thin rug, staring at the opposite wall of her room. She took a deep, shaky breath, and looked down at her hands. Her rosary was wrapped around her right hand, and her wedding band, her only piece of jewelry, shone faintly on her left. She looked up and around the room, and her gaze fell on the small clock on the bedside table.

 

It was midnight.

 

XxxXxxX

 

_ Brighton, England, 1972 _

 

St Bartholomew's Conservatory for the Elderly was not quite the place Elle had expected to find her mother in. After all, her mother couldn’t have been more than sixty, at the very most. But this was where two years of searching had led her. 

 

Elle had never been to England before. She spoke English well enough, she’d learned it after she’d married Armin, as his family had many associates from around the world. The people were very polite, and the food was not terrible. She just hadn’t expected it to be so  _ wet _ .

 

It was nice in Brighton. They were near the ocean. Elle had never seen the ocean before taking the ferry over from France. If she had time, she would like to maybe visit the beach for a constitutional. She liked swimming, and cold water had never bothered her, anyway.

 

Elle straightened her prim tweed suit jacket, a few years out of style, yes, but she was not comfortable in the new fashion craze that was sweeping Europe. She liked her skirt suits, thank you very much. They made her feel proper. Taking a deep breath, she marched up to the doors of the conservatory and made her way to the front desk.

 

“I am looking for Charity Clark,” she told the receptionist in her accented English, using the alias she had discovered her mother living under.

 

The receptionist blinked at her from behind her spectacles. “Are you family?” she asked, sounding bored.

 

“No,” Elle replied. “Just a friend.”

 

“Room 19A,” the receptionist said, waving vaguely. “Down the hall to the right.”

 

“Thank you,” Elle said dryly. She found the room without much trouble, but it was empty. She flagged down a passing nurse. “Excuse me, do you know where Charity Clark is?”

 

“She’s in the solarium,” the nurse replied. “I’ll show you.”

 

The nurse led Elle to a large, glass-walled addition on the north side of the building. A few elderly patients rested in wheelchairs, playing board games or reading quietly. The nurse pointed. “She’s just there.”

 

Elle turned to look in the direction the nurse indicated, her heart jumping up into her throat. The woman sitting off in a corner by herself was at least thirty years younger than any of the other residents. Her hair was still mostly dark, streaked with the occasional silver. Her olive skin was unmarred by wrinkles, and her dark eyes were contemplative as she stared out at the gardens.

 

For a moment, Elle couldn’t move. She stared at the woman, at Charity, at  _ Charani _ . They had the same nose, the same shape of the mouth. Elle knew this woman was unmistakably her mother. But she couldn’t have been more than forty. Why was she here?

 

Elle finally found the courage to move, and she made her way across the solarium towards Charity--Charani. The older woman didn’t look around as Elle approached. “Excuse me?” Elle said in a hoarse voice once she was close enough to speak quietly.

 

Charity looked up sharply and frowned at Elle. “Surely it’s not time yet,” she said in faintly-accented English.

 

Elle blinked. “Time for what?” she asked blankly.

 

Charity gestured toward the solarium walls. “The sun is still up. It isn’t time to go back to my room yet.”

 

“Oh, no,” Elle said quickly. “I’m not one of the nurses.”

 

“Oh,” Charity said, and peered hard at Elle. “Do I know you?”

 

Elle pulled a chair over and sat down gingerly, clasping her hands together in front of her. “No, you don’t,” she said. “Not yet, anyway. Mrs Clark--”

 

“ _ Miss _ Clark,” Charity corrected. “I never married.” She frowned. “At least, I don’t think I did.”

 

“Miss Clark,” Elle amended. “You were imprisoned at Płaszów from 1943 to 1944, weren’t you?”

 

Charity blinked several times, her hands fluttering. “Why--why would you wish to speak of that place?” she demanded. “No. No. That time is long over. Forget about it. I won’t speak of it.”

 

“Please, Miss Clark,” Elle pleaded. “While you were there, in 1943, you had a child, a girl.”

 

Charity’s eyes filled up with tears. “My poor baby. My poor child. Gone, gone. The Nazis. They took everything from us. They took my little girl.”

 

“No, they didn’t,” Elle insisted. She reached out and took Charity’s hand. “Miss Clark, I am that baby. I am your daughter. The midwife smuggled me out of the camp, took me to an orphanage in Switzerland, where I would be safe. I’ve spent two years looking for you.”

 

Charity stared at Elle for several long, silent moments. She raised a trembling hand to touch Elle’s face. “No,” she whispered. “It is not possible. You are a  _ detlene _ , showing me what I want to see. My baby, so beautiful, all grown up.” She patted Elle’s cheek. “I still see them, you know. The  _ mulo _ . They still come to me. You should not be here,  _ detlene _ . I laid you to rest a long time ago.”

 

“I am not a spirit, Miss Clark,” Elle said firmly. “I am very much alive, and I am sitting in front of you. I  _ am _ your daughter.”

 

Charity shook her head and patted Elle’s cheek again. “I have no children, little one. My little girl, she died a long time ago, and my man, he has not had the heart to give me another.”

 

Elle went still. Did this mean her father was still alive? She leaned forward. “Miss Clark, would you like to tell me about Loki?” she asked softly.

 

Charity’s eyes lit up. “Loki, yes,” she said eagerly. “He is my man.” She leaned forward conspiratorially. “We never married. Such a scandal it was. Set all the old women tutting. He never wanted it, and what was the point? He never strayed, you know. Always loyal. Handsome man, too. All the women wanted him, but he was mine.” She patted Elle’s hand. “And he was always so good to me. Always took care of me. I see him, too, sometimes, now that he’s gone.”

 

Elle sat back, fighting back disappointment. So. Her father was dead. No matter, she had found her mother, and that was good enough. “What was he like?” she pressed.

 

“Oh, he was magic,” Charity said. “He was. He could do the most marvelous things. That’s how we met. He came to me. Wanted me to teach him my Gift. Teach him to speak to the dead.”

 

Elle went still and glanced down at her wedding band. How many times had she spoken to Armin over the last two years? Two many to count. A tiny seed of doubt had finally started creeping in; maybe she wasn’t dreaming. Maybe she really could speak to the dead.

 

“Miss Clark,” Elle said softly. “I...I speak to the dead, sometimes, too.”

 

Charity peered at her with a frown. “Are you  _ drobarni _ , too child? Yes, you must be. You look one of us. Good Romani stock. The Gift, it runs strong in our blood.” She nodded to herself. 

 

Elle stared at Charity for a moment. “Miss Clark, do you not remember?” she asked in confusion. “I just told you. My name is Elle. I’m your daughter.”

 

Charity shook her head. “No, that’s not possible. My daughter died in the camp. Poor thing. Poor child. No, I don’t have any children. My man didn’t have the heart to give me any more.” She fell quiet and went back to staring out the window.

 

Elle sat back in her chair, confused. The conversation had gone utterly nowhere, leaving Elle feeling lost. She leaned forward again and touched Charity’s hand. “Miss Clark?” she called softly.

 

Charity looked over at her and frowned. “Surely it’s not time to go back to my room yet,” she said crossly. “The sun is still up.”

 

Elle’s heart sank as realization sunk in. Charity Clark had dementia. Her memories were unreliable, and she had difficulty making new ones. She’d forgotten who Elle was in just a matter of minutes. Elle had to fight to keep back the tears. Two years of searching, only to find this.

 

“I’m not a nurse,” she told Charity when she could speak without her voice trembling. “I just thought you might like some company.”

 

Charity peered hard at Elle. “Yes,” she said at length. “Yes, I would. You look like a good girl. Good Romani stock. What is your name?”

 

“Elle,” Elle told her. “Elle Braun.”

 

“Such a good girl, Elle,” Charity said, patting Elle’s hand. “Keeping a poor woman like me company. Such a good girl.”

 

Elle stayed as long as she could stand it, which was nearly an hour, before she knew she had to flee. The disappointment threatened to overwhelm her. She bid Charity a watery goodbye, and stood to leave, only to find a man standing near her chair.

 

“Oh,” she said in surprise, and tilted her head back to look at him. He was very tall, and slender, wearing a dark three-piece suit with a green tie. He had dark hair, almost black, shiny and slicked back from his forehead. He was also very pale, and had intelligent, pale green eyes. He was holding a bouquet of white roses in one hand.

 

“I apologize,” he said in a cultured accent, and stepped back. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

 

“No, not at all,” Elle said quickly.

 

The man glanced from Elle to Charity and back. “Miss Clark doesn’t get many visitors,” he said.

 

“I--” Elle stopped herself. “I just thought she looked lonely,” she finished after a moment.

 

The man smiled. He had a charming smile. “That was very kind of you.”

 

“It was nothing,” Elle said quickly. “I am sorry, but I must go. I--I have to catch the train.”

 

“Of course,” the man said, and stepped aside. “Have a nice day, Miss Braun.”

 

Elle blinked and stared at him, realizing that he must have been standing there longer than she had thought. She had had to tell Charity her name three times over the last hour. He must have overheard them. “Thank you,” she blurted, and hurried off. When she reached the door to the solarium, she looked back.

 

The man was sitting in her vacated chair, leaning toward Charity with a small smile on his face, offering the flowers. Charity beamed and took them from him, holding them up to her face. Elle wondered who he was for a moment, but shook her head. She turned, and left.

 

XxxXxxX

 

_ Brighton, England, 1974 _

 

There were more people at the funeral than Elle had expected there to be. Apparently in the twenty-five years that Charity Clark, nee Charani Kalderash, had lived in England, she had made quite a lot of friends. Elle had not been able to bring herself to visit Charity again, but when she had made her monthly call to St Bartholomew’s to inquire after her, she had been told that Charity had passed unexpectedly. Elle had had only three days to make it to Brighton for the funeral.

 

She sat in the back of the church, where she wouldn’t be noticed, and listened while the priest waxed eloquent about Charity’s life. Apparently she had lived up to her name, and had been a bolster of the community. There were many tears during the ceremony, which absurdly made Elle feel better. Her mother had been well loved.

 

Elle herself was unable to mourn. She’d never quite made her peace with her mother’s illness, and she was too confused now to allow herself to cry. What was she supposed to feel? She twisted her wedding band around her finger. Beside her, Armin sat still and quiet, unnoticed by anyone else in the church. He wasn’t watching the priest. He was watching her.

 

It had been four years now that she had been seeing him, and she was certain now that it was not by dreaming. She knew the truth of her mother’s Gift. She had been a  _ drabarni _ , and Elle was one, now, too. Only she didn’t have anyone to teach her how to use her Gift.

 

Armin stayed with her during the service, and when the mourners filed out to the well-kept cemetery next to the church. The grave had already been dug, waiting for Charity’s pallbearers to lower the coffin down. Elle stayed at the edge of the crowd around the grave, not wishing to attract attention.

 

“I didn’t expect to see you here.”

 

At the male voice behind her, Elle jumped and spun around. In her peripheral vision, she saw Armin turn with her, looking curiously at the speaker. It took Elle a moment to identify him. It was the man at St Bartholomew’s, the one who had brought Charity flowers.

 

“I’m sorry,” Elle stammered. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”

 

“Not at all,” the man replied. “You are quite welcome. Miss Clark was an extraordinary woman. She touched many lives.”

 

“Yes, she did,” Elle murmured. “I’m sorry, but I never caught your name.”

 

The man smiled, tight-lipped. “I’m an old friend of Charity’s,” he said instead of introducing himself. “She meant a great deal to me.”

 

“My condolences,” Elle said, clasping her hands together.

 

“Thank you,” the man replied softly. He looked over at the gravesite, and then back at Elle. “Excuse me. Thank you for paying your respects to Miss Clark.” With that he strode over to the the pallbearers, who were just beginning to lower the coffin down.

 

Armin put his hand on Elle’s shoulder. “It’s all right, darling,” he told her softly. “You’ve done enough.”

 

Elle took a deep, shaky breath. “I know,” she whispered.

 

XxxXxxX

 

_ Brooklyn, New York, USA, 2012 _

 

The tones in the station went off at 2:34 am. Most of the paramedics were in the barracks, asleep, but Ellie Brown was a raging insomniac most nights, so she was in the bay hitting the “enroute” button before the tones ended. After a brief silence, the dispatcher’s voice came over the speakers.

 

“Medic B22, gunshot, Herbert Von King Park, 670 Lafayette Ave. Cross streets are Marcy and Tompkins. Time out is 2:35. Channel assignment is 3, channel assignment 3.”

 

_ Gunshot _ , Ellie thought to herself.  _ Awesome _ . She was already dressed in her uniform, she just had to grab her reflective jacket. Beck and Caldwell, the other two paramedics on her ambulance, stumbled into the bay, tucking their shirts in and yawning.

 

“Wazzit this time?” Beck mumbled as he grabbed his jacket from the hook. He’d likely only listened to the dispatch long enough to hear which medic was being toned out.

 

“Gunshot,” Ellie replied, unplugging the ambulance from the giant power cords dangling from the ceiling.

 

“What, again?” Caldwell asked grumpily. He didn’t expect a reply and he didn’t get one. He opened the driver side door and pulled himself up. Beck got in on the other side. Ellie rode in the box, as she was the one with the highest medical degree. She actually had a nurse’s license as well as a paramedic, which made her a valuable asset to Amstar Paramedic Station 4.

 

They served the Bed-Stuy area of Brooklyn, a private paramedic service hired by the City of Brooklyn, who had a hard enough time hiring and keeping enough firefighters to worry about paramedics on top of that.

 

Medic B22 was out of the bay less than two minutes from the time the tones started. Despite being in the middle of the night, there was still enough traffic to warrant using the sirens to bully their way through the streets the five blocks to the park. On the way there, the dispatcher relayed what little information they had been able to gather over the sound-cancelling headsets the paramedics wore in the ambulance.

 

Their patient was on the southeast corner of the park, next to some bushes in a dark patch. Ellie heard Beck’s voice over the headset. “Five bucks says it’s a mugging.”

 

“Nah, man,” Caldwell protested. “Drug deal gone wrong.”

 

“Brown, what do you think?” Beck asked.

 

“Gang violence,” Ellie guessed.

 

“That’s what you always say,” Beck protested.

 

“And how often am I right?” Ellie shot back. “You still owe me forty bucks.”

 

“How about I buy you dinner and we’ll call it even?”

 

Ellie rolled her eyes. “In your dreams.”

 

“Shot  _ down _ !” Caldwell crowed. “What is that? Like five times this  _ month _ . Give it up, brother. Ellie is ice cold.”

 

“Hey, I got game,” Beck protested. “She can’t say no forever.”

 

“I don’t date white guys, Beck,” Ellie told him.

 

“You’ve  _ never _ dated a white guy?” Beck challenged.

 

Ellie grimaced. “Once,” she said. “I dated a white guy once.”

 

“Toldya,” Caldwell said smugly. “Sister is  _ ice cold _ .”

 

It took them eight minutes to get to Herbert Von King Park. They piled out of the ambulance and hurriedly gathered their bags before setting off to the southeast corner. Ellie was on high alert. A gunshot victim meant there was a gun, and a person who had shot the gun, and the very high chance that that person could still be around. None of them, of course, were allowed to carry a weapon, which begged the question: how crazy were they?

 

The answer: pretty damn crazy.

 

However, Ellie had not yet met anything that had come close to killing her, so she wasn’t terribly worried about herself. Beck and Caldwell, however, were squishy mortals, and she  _ was _ worried about them.

 

“Over here!” Beck called, waving from a spot that the streetlamps didn’t reach.

 

Ellie cursed under her breath and broke out into a run. She reached Beck and swung her bag off her shoulder, dropping her knees in the dewy grass.

 

“Black male, approximately 18-25 years old,” Beck reported. “Single gunshot to the stomach. Loss of blood, approximately one to one and a half pints, internal hemorrhaging definite.”

 

Ellie pulled a penlight out of her pocket and peeled the boy’s eyelids back. She flashed the light in his eyes twice. “I’m getting minimal pupillary response,” she announced.

 

“He’s in shock,” Caldwell observed. He had a pack of bandages pressed to the wound while Beck started an IV. Ellie sat back on her heels and _looked_ at the young man. He had this sort of lightless glow, an invisible shimmer that was more felt than seen.

 

“Dammit,” she whispered to herself. She would still do everything she could, of course, she could do no less, but her gut told her the kid would not make it to the hospital. Only the dead ones got the shine. At least she’d be there to help him along.

 

There was a rustling in the bushes, and then another young man stumbled out, this one Hispanic. The three paramedics all jumped and turned toward him. The newcomer stared at the three of them, eyes wide. “Is he dead?” he demanded roughly.

 

“No,” Caldwell said shortly. The young man brought his right hand out from behind his back. He was holding a pistol. “God _ dammit _ ,” Caldwell muttered under his breath.

 

Ellie was on her feet in a flash, and stepped between the gunman and her coworkers. “Ellie, what the  _ fuck _ ?” Beck demanded.

 

“Look, son,” Ellie said calmly, holding one gloved hand out. “You don’t want to be doing that.”

 

“Get outta the way,” the young man said. His gun hand shook slightly. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

 

“I don’t want anyone to get hurt either,” Ellie assured him. “But this kid is my patient, and I’m not going to let you shoot him.”

 

“I don’t have a choice,” the young man protested. “I gotta do this!”

 

“You always have a choice,” Ellie said firmly. “There is  _ always _ a choice. And you can choose to walk away now. Put the gun down and walk away.”

 

“If I don’t kill him, I’m  _ dead _ ,” the young man said brokenly.

 

“Think about what you’re doing,” Ellie told him. Behind her Beck and Caldwell continued doing what they could to stabilize the patient. “You are threatening three paramedics. We have radios. And our radios have panic buttons. You might kill all three of us but I guarantee one of us is going to hit that button. And when we do, every cop in Bed-Stuy is gonna come running. They will catch you, I promise you. Is that what you want? To go down over some gang hit? You want to spend the rest of your life in jail?”

 

The boy hesitated, the gun drifting to the side. Ellie moved then, faster than humanly possible, stepping forward and grabbing the boy’s gun hand. He cried out in pain and dropped the gun, stumbling backwards, clutching his hand. There was a perfect handprint of reddish-white, shiny skin where Ellie had grabbed him.

 

“What the fuck, man?” the boy yelled, staring at Ellie. He turned and fled, leaving the gun behind. Ellie stooped and picked up the gun.

 

“I’m going to get the cot,” she announced, holding the gun at arm’s length.

 

“I told you man,” Caldwell said to Beck as she headed back to the ambulance. “Ice cold.”

 

As Ellie had predicted, the young victim flatlined in the box on the way to the hospital, and they didn’t get a rhythm back either with the AED or with the Epi. The ER doctor called it within five minutes of them arriving.

 

Ellie sat in a chair just inside the medic bay while Caldwell filled out the paperwork, staring off into space. She blinked when she saw the young man wander out of the room he’d been placed in, looking around in confusion. He still had that same shine to him. Ellie got to her feet and crossed over to him.

 

“Hey,” she said softly.

 

He looked over at her, his eyes wide. “Am I--am I dead?” he asked, his voice catching.

 

“Yeah,” Ellie told him. She reached over and put her hand on his arm. His skin had no temperature. It was neither warm nor cold. “It’s okay, though. You don’t have to be scared. You’re not alone.”

 

The boy took a ragged breath. “What--what happens now?” he asked, sounding scared. “I don’t know what to do.”

 

Ellie smiled at him sadly. “I can’t tell you what to do. You can stay, if you want. It’ll be hard. No one will be able to see or hear you. Or you could, you know, move on.”

 

The boy’s eyes filled up with tears. “Where will I go?”

 

“I don’t know,” Ellie admitted.

 

“I’m not--I haven’t done good things,” the boy told her in a small voice. “I’m scared.”

 

Ellie nodded. “I know. It is scary. What’s your name?”

 

“Jamar,” the boy said, and sniffled. “Jamar Williams.”

 

Ellie folded her lips inward. “Listen, Jamar. If you want, you can stick around with me for a few days. Let things settle in. And when you’re ready to go, I’ll be there for you.”

 

Jamar sniffled again and wiped his nose on the back of his hand. “Really?” he asked.

 

Ellie patted his arm. “Yeah. Really.”

 

“O-okay,” Jamar said. “I’d like that.”

 

XxxXxxX

 

Ellie trudged up the stairs from the Subway station, her hands shoved in her pocket. Jamar followed behind her. He hadn’t said much, not since the hospital. They hadn’t had any other calls, miraculously, for the rest of the night, so they played checkers in the common room while the rest of the paramedics slept. Ellie’s shift was over at 7 am, so she took the Subway the few blocks to her apartment.

 

Ellie stopped on the sidewalk outside her apartment building. “Okay. We’re going to need to set a few boundaries,” she told Jamar. “You’re a ghost, but I don’t want you pulling any ‘Poltergeist’ shit, okay? And no peeking on me or my roomie in the shower, got it?”

 

Jamar blinked a few times. “Oh,” he said. “Uh, okay. Yeah, sure.”

 

Ellie nodded and pulled her keys out of her pocket. The elevator hadn’t worked since the late 80’s, so they took the stairs up to the eighth floor. When Ellie opened the door, she was greeted by the smell of eggs and bacon and toast.

 

“Please tell me some of that’s for me,” Ellie said.

 

Rudi blinked at Ellie somewhat blearily from where she stood by the stove, a cup of coffee in one hand. Her straight, coarse black hair was twisted up into a messy bun and she was still in her pajamas. “Yes?” she replied, sounding unsure.

 

“God, I love you,” Ellie said, peeling off her hoodie and throwing her bag into a corner. 

 

Rudi smiled, her almond-shaped eyes almost disappearing. “Mmm, yes.”

 

“Full disclosure, I’ve brought a friend home from work,” Ellie said, giving Jamar a slight nudge. He startled and took a few steps into the apartment.

 

“Hi friend!” Rudi said, and waved her spatula not remotely in Jamar’s direction.

 

“Wait, she knows you can, uh, see dead people?” Jamar demanded, staring at Ellie in confusion.

 

“Yup,” Ellie replied, and crossed over to the kitchen. “Make yourself at home. Watch some cable. No porn, though.”

 

Jamar looked around. “Uh, okay,” he said uncertainly, and walked over to the couch. He sat down and stared at the remote control on the table. He poked it with one finger. It moved slightly.

 

Ellie joined Rudi at the stove and kissed her girlfriend briefly before taking the plate sitting beside the stove. “Thanks, babe.”

 

“Um-hmm,” Rudi replied, nodding sleepily. “How was work? Other than meeting a new dead friend.”

 

“Eh,” Ellie said. “Same ol’, same ol’.”

 

“You’re weird,” Rudi said, and drank from her coffee. If Jamar had stuck around, he would have realized that the stove was not, in fact, on. Rudi put her her mug down and cracked another egg into the pan and added a few slices of bacon. She touched the pan with one finger, and the food immediately began to sizzle.

 

“Do you work today?” Ellie asked.

 

“No,” Rudi said. “It’s Saturday, dummy.”

 

“Is it?” Ellie asked. “Hadn’t noticed.”

 

Rudi poked Ellie with her spatula. “No work. Which means you take a shower and we have cuddle time.” She glanced over at the TV, which was now on and flipping through channels. “Your friend is not invited.”

 

“His name is Jamar, and I gave him the Talk,” Ellie assure her.

 

“Uh, Ellie?” Jamar said uncertainly from the couch. “You might want to see this.”

 

Ellie frowned and looked up at the TV, putting her fork down. Rudi turned to follow her gaze. Jamar had turned on the news.

 

“Is that--Is that Manhattan?” Rudi asked uncertainly.

 

“Yeah,” Ellie said slowly. She got out of her chair and wandered over to stare at the TV. There was a… portal of some kind over Stark Tower, and  _ things  _ were pouring out of it. Then the explosions started. 

 

The apartment building trembled faintly, the explosions felt as far as Bed-Stuy. Rudi reached over and grabbed Ellie’s hand tightly. “Oh my god,” she whispered. “Is this really happening?”

 

“Yeah,” Ellie said numbly. “I think so.”

 

The camera footage went out of focus, and then refocused on one of the things zipping by. It was being piloted by a man wearing green and gold armor, with a great, horned, helmet. He turned his head, and the camera, for a split second, got a perfect view of his face.

 

Ellie’s mind clunked to a halt. She recognized him. She _recognized_ him. It had been forty-two years since she’d seen him, but she knew him in a second. Her brain turned over a few times, and then froze again with realization.

  
“Oh,” she whispered. “ _ Shit _ .”


	3. Game Changer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey kids! I know I have a reputation for lightning-fast updates, but Christmas is kicking my ass. It's busier at work and my days off are spent catching up on sleep and shopping. Also I have had a whole bunch of fic ideas eating my brain. It's like being attacked by a horde of hungry zombies. Yeesh. Anyway, here's an update and please let me know what you think.

Ellie didn’t have much time to process her new discovery. She was paged in to work as soon as the portal was closed and the explosions stopped, and she spent the next fifteen hours digging through the rubble that was once Manhattan, looking for survivors. She found more ghosts than patients, and by the time her boss told her to go home and get some sleep, she was too emotionally and physically exhausted to even think about anything else other than getting a shower, hugging Rudi, and being unconscious for at least ten hours. Which she did as soon as Caldwell dropped her off in front of her apartment building.

 

Now, four days after the incident, Ellie had worked two more twelve-hour shifts in Manhattan before her boss gave her a few days off to recover. She sat at the kitchen table, chin propped on one hand, staring at the blurry image on her laptop screen.

 

Rudi hovered nervously over one shoulder, holding her wineglass in one hand. Jamar hovered over the other shoulder.

 

“You’re sure?” Rudi asked, putting her hand on Ellie’s arm.

 

“Yeah,” Ellie said, a bit numbly, and leaned back. “He still looks exactly the same.”

 

“I’m still stuck on the fact you’re  _ sixty-nine _ ,” Jamar said, giving Ellie a sidelong once-over.

 

Ellie snapped her fingers at him. “Focus,” she ordered.

 

“No, seriously, you look, like,  _ twenty _ ,” Jamar went on. “ _ Maybe _ twenty-five.”

 

“Jamar,” Ellie said warningly, shooting him a glare.

 

“Speaking of which, aren’t your friends usually gone by now?” Rudi asked, looking askance at the space Jamar was occupying.

 

“And miss all of this?” Jamar shot back. “Hell no, I ain’t going into the light with all this going on.”

 

“He’s too invested in the Incident,” Ellie told Rudi.

 

Rudi snorted and turned to look at the screen again. “I still can’t believe he’s your  _ dad _ .”

 

“I’m pretty sure he is, anyway,” Ellie muttered to herself. She gestured. “I met him twice before. Once at the retirement home my mother was at, and once at her funeral. My father’s name was Loki, according to my mother’s  _ kumpania _ , and this guy’s name is Loki. Ergo…”

 

“Your old man is a supervillain,” Jamar told her. “That is tight!”

 

Ellie shook her head sharply. “You’re not getting it, are you?”

 

“Getting what?” Rudi and Jamar said at the same time.

 

Ellie jabbed her finger at the computer screen. “Loki is the brother of  _ Thor _ . The alien. From  _ Asgard _ . And he’s my  _ father _ .”

 

“Holy  _ shit _ !” Jamar blurted. “You’re an  _ alien _ .”

 

“Oh my god, you’re half  _ alien _ ,” Rudi exclaimed a half second later. Her eyes widened and she looked down at Ellie. “Oh, god, babe, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I mean,  _ yeah _ , you’re half alien but that doesn’t mean anything. You’re the same Ellie you were before, and it’s not like you’re the only one with wacky powers, and--”

 

“Rudi,” Ellie interrupted gently. “Breathe.”

 

Rudi’s mouth snapped closed and she continued to stare at Ellie for a long moment. “You know I still love you, right, babe?” she asked in a small voice.

 

Ellie smiled and it felt like some of the weight on her chest lifted. “Yeah, I love you, too.”

 

“Can we go back to the part where you’re a sixty-nine year old  _ alien _ ?” Jamar interrupted.

 

“ _ Half _ alien,” Ellie corrected. “I’m half human, too.” She frowned at the image of Loki again. “I just… I just really didn’t see this coming. I remember how he was with my mother. He saved her life. He took care of her, brought her flowers. At her funeral, he looked sad.” She gestured toward the screen again. “This… I have no idea where the hell any of this came from.”

 

“Well, it’s been thirty-eight years,” Rudi said hesitantly. “A lot could have happened, you know.”

 

“Yeah,” Ellie said wearily, and reached over to slap the laptop closed. “I don’t even know what to think right now.”

 

“You’re an  _ alien _ ,” Jamar prompted. “You have alien  _ superpowers _ . You need a secret identity! You need a costume. You could be an Avenger!”

 

“Right, that would work out  _ so _ well, considering they just saved Manhattan from my  _ father _ ,” Ellie snapped, and then sighed, holding up a hand. “Sorry.”

 

“No, no, it’s cool,” Jamar said quickly. “I get it. Didn’t think of that.” He tilted his head. “You could still go for a cool name, though, or something.”

 

Ellie pushed herself to her feet and shook her head. “I’m not a superhero,” she told Jamar firmly. “That sort of shit attracts too much attention from the wrong people, and Rudi’s already on the Index. I’m not risking her safety.”

 

Jamar stared at her. “What’s the Index?” he asked.

 

“Are we sure that’s safe to talk about?” Rudi asked almost at the same time.

 

“He’s dead,” Ellie reminded her. “Who’s he gonna tell?”

 

“Good point,” Rudi admitted.

 

“What’s the Index?” Jamar asked again, looking between the two women.

 

“The Index is a list kept by SHIELD of everyone with powers,” Ellie told him. “Rudi’s on it. If I start any superhero shenanigans, SHIELD is gonna come sniffing around here, and Rudi could get in trouble.”

 

Jamar turned to look at Rudi. “You mean how she can heat things up by touching them?” he asked.

 

“She’s a pyro,” Ellie explained.

 

“Pyro and a cryo,” Rudi said in a sing song voice, raising her wineglass to her lips.

 

“A what and a what?” Jamar asked blankly.

 

“Pyrokinetic and cryokinetic,” Ellie said, rolling her eyes. “Rudi can light things on fire with her mind, and I can freeze them.”

 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Jamar said, waving one hand in front of his face. “You can see ghosts  _ and _ freeze things? You’re like Frozone or some shit?”

 

Rudi lowered her wineglass and tapped her lips. “You know, this kinda makes sense now,” she said, not hearing Jamar’s question. “You knew you got your ghost whisperer abilities from your mom, but you always wondered about the cryo part. You must get that from your dad.”

 

Ellie shrugged. “Regardless, I’m going to make the cheesiest, fattest macaroni casserole, garlic bread, and drink until I don’t care anymore.”

 

Rudi sighed. “Babe, you’re bad for my waistline.”

 

Jamar grimaced. “I miss food.”

 

XxxXxxX

 

_ Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, New York, 2014 _

 

“Ellie, I’m  _ bored _ .”

 

This was quickly becoming the most annoying phrase Ellie had ever heard. She finished plugging the giant power cords into the ambulance and turned on her heel to glare at the young man trailing along behind her. “If you’re so  _ bored _ you know you could always go into the light. Like you should have.  _ Two years ago _ .”

 

Jamar shrugged. “Nah, man. At least I know where I’m at,  _ here _ . Don’t know if I’m headed up or down once I cross over.”

 

“Well, there’s nothing keeping you here, Jamar,” Ellie snapped. “You could leave, you know. Go anywhere.”

 

“Yeah, but I can’t  _ touch _ things when I get too far away from you,” Jamar retorted irritably.

 

“That’s not my problem,” Ellie told him. 

 

“Yeah, it kinda is,” Jamar pointed out. “I mean,  _ you’re _ the one that can see ghosts and shit.”

 

“ _ Regardless _ ,” Ellie said sharply. “Go bother someone else.”

 

“No one else can see me,” Jamar replied, annoyed.

 

Ellie took a deep breath through her nose. As annoying as the ghost was, she had to remember that it was probably frustrating for Jamar, too. Only able to speak to Ellie, not able to touch anything unless she was nearby, condemned to a lifetime in limbo unless he made the choice to cross over. If he ever did.

 

She reached up and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Do you want to play chess?” she asked.

 

Jamar shoved his hands into the pockets of the ratty hoodie he’d been wearing the day of his death. “Alright, fine,” he said ungraciously.

 

Ellie retrieved the chess set she’d squirrelled away in an equipment locker and set it up on a low folding table. Just as they’d set up the board, Ellie’s phone rang. She pulled it out and glanced at it quickly. “Oh, hang on. It’s Rudi.” She held it up to her ear. “Hey, babe.”

 

She was met with the sound of Rudi hysterically sobbing into the phone. Ellie shot bolt upright, pressing her phone to her ear. “Rudi, what happened?” she demanded. “What’s wrong?”

 

_ “They know,” _ Rudi hiccuped.  _ “It’s all there. They know about me. Oh, god, Ellie, they’re gonna come for me.” _

 

Ellie shot to her her feet. “Rudi, what are you talking about?  _ Who _ knows?”

 

_ “It’s all over the news,” _ Rudi managed.  _ “They know now!” _

 

Ellie charged past Jamar, ignoring his plaintive shout of “What is it now?”

 

The rest of the paramedics were in the common room, clustered around the television. Ellie shouldered her way through, her phone still plastered to her ear. On the TV was a live news coverage of what appeared to be three helicarriers falling into pieces into the Potomac.

 

Ellie’s mouth fell open. “Fucking superheroes and their stupid  _ fucking _ agendas,” she snarled. She looked around and saw Freeney sitting on the couch, laptop forgotten in his lap. She tucked her phone under her chin and marched over, snatching the computer.

 

“Hey!” Freeney protested weakly.

 

“Shut it,” Ellie snapped back, and pulled up a browser window. She typed in  _ Rudolphia Tran _ . Rudi’s Instagram, Facebook, and her employee profile at the bank. But then, the fourth entry down… Ellie clicked on it and felt a cold wash of fear flow over her.

 

It was Rudi’s Index profile, complete with her name, date of birth, and a detailed description of her abilities.

 

“ _ Shit _ ,” Ellie spat. “Rudi, I’m on my way. Just hang on.” She hung up the phone and whirled around to find the station chief standing behind her. “I have to go,” she told him flatly.

 

He tore his gaze away from the TV and looked at her. “What?” he asked.

 

“I have to go,” Ellie repeated. “My girlfriend just had her entire life dumped on the internet and she needs me.”

 

Chief blinked a few times and then nodded, gesturing with one hand. Ellie nodded back and hustled for the door, only belatedly checking that Jamar was behind her. He looked confused, and frightened, but he kept pace with her when she hit the sidewalk.

 

It took entirely too long for Ellie to get back to their apartment, and when she burst through the door she had barely a second to prepare before Rudi threw herself at Ellie. Thankfully Ellie was a good six inches taller than pocket-sized Rudi, and she caught her easily.

 

“It’s okay,” Ellie said, clinging back as hard as Rudi. “It’s okay, babe, I got you.”

 

Behind her, Jamar courteously closed the door behind them and edged awkwardly out of sight.

 

“I don’t know what to do,” Rudi sobbed into Ellie’s ear. “They’re gonna find me. They’re gonna come for me.”

 

“We don’t know that,” Ellie soothed. “It’s going to be okay, Rudi, I promise.”

 

“I’m so scared,” Rudi wailed.

 

Ellie shifted her grip, reaching up to press one hand to Rudi’s head, pressing her girlfriend’s face against her neck. “Rudi, I promise, no matter what happens, I will take care of you. I will protect you.”

 

Rudi tightened her grip around Ellie’s neck. “I know,” she said in a tear-thick voice. “I know.”

 

XxxXxxX

 

Two days later, Ellie had done her best to track down and delete everything she could find on Rudi on the internet, including all her social media sites, just to be safe. Rudi had been a complete mess, of course. She was a loan manager at a bank, she knew exactly what the sort of trouble you could get into when your information was plastered over the internet.

 

So far, nothing horrible had happened, but Ellie wasn’t holding her breath.

 

Sometime during the early hours of the third morning, Ellie woke up to Jamar poking her shoulder.

 

“I swear to god, Jamar, I will kick your ass into the light myself,” Ellie muttered without opening her eyes.

 

“There’s someone on the fire escape,” Jamar said. “And he looks fucked up. Might be bleeding, too.”

 

Ellie shot upright. “What?” she hissed quietly so as not to wake Rudi.

 

Jamar nodded, eyebrows raised. Ellie growled. “Fuck,” she muttered, and slipped out of bed, finding a sweatshirt on the floor and tugging it on as she padded out to the living room. There were blackout curtains over the window to the fire escape. Ellie twitched it aside and peered out.

 

There was indeed a man huddled in the corner of the fire escape. In the orange glow of the streetlights, she could see he was wearing a dark blue hoodie and a black baseball cap, and he was clutching a backpack to his chest.

 

“We are eight floors up,” Ellie muttered. “How did he get all the way up here?”

 

“I dunno, man, but he’s seriously jonesing,” Jamar offered. “I seen guys like him before. He’s coming down from  _ some _ shit.”

 

“Great,” Ellie muttered, and pulled back the curtains. She unlocked the window and began to pull it up.

 

“What are you doing?” Jamar exclaimed. “You’re gonna get yourself shanked! You need to call 911!”

 

“I  _ am _ 911,” Ellie replied, and leaned out the window to examine the man. He hadn’t even moved when she’d opened it, so she felt safe ducking through it and crouching next to him. No, she wasn’t an idiot. She probably  _ should _ have called 911. But she was a paramedic first and foremost. She would assess his condition and then call..

 

“Hey,” she called softly. The man jerked, his head shooting up. Ellie sighed. Yeah. This guys was definitely coming down from something. His pupils were pinpoints and his eyes were deeply shadowed. He had about three weeks of stubble and his cheeks were hollow. Ellie couldn’t even predict when the last time he’d gotten a decent meal.

 

“I’m a paramedic,” Ellie said soothingly. “I just want to help you. Will you let me help you?”

 

The man stared blankly at her for a few seconds, then his tongue darted out in a vain attempt to moisten dried and cracked lips. He was dangerously dehydrated. Ellie  _ definitely _ needed to call 911. This man needed a hospital, and stat.

 

Ellie nodded to herself and started to rise to her feet. The man reacted with startling swiftness. His left arm shot out and his hand clamped around her wrist, inhumanly strong and tight. Ellie looked down reflexively, and bit down on a gasp. The man’s hand was made of interlocking metal plates. And the only person Ellie knew with a metal hand like that had been on TV three days ago trying to kill Captain America.

 

Okay. Maybe calling 911 was not such a good idea.

 

Ellie sat back on her heels, the man still clinging to her arm. She reviewed her options in her mind. They were not many. She had a Hydra assassin capable of taking down Captain America going through withdrawal from some unknown drug currently holding her arm in an unbreakable grip. From the feel of it, he could snap her bones with very little effort.

 

Ellie raised her other hand slowly and gently placed it over the man’s hand gripping her arm. She focused for a moment, and drew deep from the core of cold power that settled somewhere underneath her sternum. Wisps of condensation flowed from her hand, and the metal plates under her palm began to ice over.

 

The man twitched and snatched his hand back, cradling it to his chest. Ellie crab-walked backwards a foot or so. Jamar leaned out the window. “What’s going on?” he demanded. “What’s wrong with him?”

 

Ellie shook her head at the ghost, not wanting to spook the assassin. He might have tried to kill Captain America three days ago, but the man in front of her was a very different person. He was dehydrated, malnourished, possibly injured. If Hydra had sent this assassin to kill the Captain, they certainly hadn’t taken care of him.

 

Or, he had defected of his own volition. Regardless, he was a patient, and Ellie was a medical professional. “Hey,” she said again. “I want to help you. Will you let me do that?”

 

He blinked and shook his head as if to clear it. His mouth worked for a few seconds, and then he rasped, “Hurt.”

 

Ellie smiled reassuringly. “No one’s going to hurt you. I’m not going to hurt you. You need fluids, and nutrients. Let me help you.”

 

His dark brows twitched together. “Orders?” he grated between clenched teeth.

 

Ellie swallowed, realization taking shape in her mind. “No orders,” she assured him. “Your choice. All I want to do is help you.”

 

“Are you sure about that?” Jamar asked, still leaning out the window. “He looks like shit.”

 

The man’s eyes cut to the side and focused directly on Jamar with a clarity that made Ellie startle. Without thinking, she reached forward and waved her hand in front of the man’s face. “Hey!” she said sharply. He jerked his gaze back to her. Ellie pointed to Jamar. “You can see him?” Ellie demanded. The man frowned at her.

 

“You can’t?” he rasped.

 

“I  _ can _ ,” Ellie said defensively. “ _ You _ shouldn’t be able to.”

 

The man licked his lips again, glanced over at Jamar, and looked back at Ellie. “He’s shiny,” he whispered hoarsely.

 

Ellie sighed. “Yes, he is. Come on, big guy, let’s get you inside.” She shuffled forward and got her hands under his armpits and heaved him upright. He staggered and leaned against her heavily. And he was quite heavy. Ellie figured that the metal arm must contribute significantly.

 

It was awkward as hell getting him through the window. Both Ellie and the man fell headlong on the floor with a bone-jarring thump. Ellie rolled over and sat up to look down at the man. She remained where he’d fallen, eyes shut tightly.

 

Rudi stumbled into the room, rubbing her eyes and froze stiff at the sight of the assassin laying on their living room floor. “El?” she asked tentatively. “What’s going on?”

 

“Found him on the fire escape,” Ellie replied shortly. “He’s detoxing from something and if he doesn’t get fluids he’s going to die.”

 

“Shouldn’t we be calling 911?” Rudi asked.

 

“That’s what  _ I _ said!” Jamar exclaimed.

 

“I’m pretty sure he’s on the run from Hydra,” Ellie replied, rolling the man over onto his back. He was limp, now, completely unconscious.

 

“Oh, my god,” Rudi said, raising on hand to her mouth. She lunged toward the side table and flipped on the lamp. “Oh, my  _ god _ !”

 

“What?” Ellie demanded, looking up at her. “What is it?”

 

“Do you know who this is?” Rudi demanded in a squeaky voice.

 

Ellie looked down at the man’s face. “Yes?” she said slowly.

 

“This isn’t possible!” Rudi squealed. “It  _ can’t _ be. I mean, he looks like shit but it’s  _ him _ .”

 

“ _ Who _ , babe?” Ellie demanded irately.

 

“That’s Bucky fucking Barnes!” Rudi hissed excitedly.

 

Ellie stared at Rudi for a moment. She knew who Bucky Barnes was.  _ Obviously _ . She’d been born in a concentration camp. She’d learned everything there was to know about the War. She looked down at the unconscious man on her floor.

 

“Well,  _ shit _ ,” she said.

 

XxxXxxX

 

His whole body hurt when he woke up. He was lying on something narrow and soft, and there was something soft and lightweight covering him. He was pretty sure there was a needle in the crook of his right elbow. He opened his eyes a crack and glanced around.

 

He was not on Base. He was in a small apartment. There was a bag of fluids hang from a coat rack next to whatever he was lying on, with a tube connected to the needle in his arm. A woman was leaning over him, just peeling back the blanket covering him.

 

He reacted before he could think, lunging up from the couch and knocking the woman away from him. He was halfway across the room before he stopped. A line of blood trickled down his flesh arm. He realized he wasn’t wearing a shirt.

 

“Whoa!” the woman said, sitting up from where she’d fallen. “It’s okay. You’re not in danger. We’re just trying to help you.”

 

He focused on her. 5’6”, dark olive skin. Shoulder-length black hair, dark eyes. Slender build, not muscular. Not likely to be a threat. Unless she was a handler and she knew the Words. He wouldn’t let anyone say the Words, not ever again. He blinked and looked at her a second time. She was wearing a white shirt that said, in rainbow letters,  _ I’m not gay, just ask my girlfriend. _ Would a handler wear something like that? He wasn’t sure.

 

“Dude, he looks ready to bolt,” said a male voice to the side. His head whipped around. A young Black male stood on the other side of the room, wearing a battered gray hoodie and torn jeans. He was… shiny, in a way he couldn’t quite describe.

 

The woman got to her feet. “My name is Ellie,” she said, and then pointed to the young man. “That’s Jamar. We’re just trying to help you. You were on our fire escape. Do you remember?”

 

Remember. There was a lot he didn’t remember. He shook his head jerkily. The woman nodded. “Okay,” she said. “You were detoxing and badly dehydrated. We had to hook you up with IV fluids and electrolytes. You’ve been unconscious for two days.”

 

Two days? He’d been in their custody for two days and they hadn’t tried to put him in the Chair? They hadn’t taken him to Base to prep him for the Tank? Why would they do that? What was the purpose? The woman stepped towards him and he reached for the knife in the back of his waistband. It wasn’t there.

 

“Whoa,” she said again. “Take it easy. No one is trying to hurt you. You just pulled your IV out and you’re bleeding.”

 

He glanced down. The small wound in the inside of his elbow was already closed. He looked up at the woman again and narrowed his eyes at her. “What do you want?” he asked, his voice dry and raspy with disuse.

 

She shook her head. “I am just trying to help you.”

 

He frowned at that. “Why?”

 

She gestured to herself. “I’m a paramedic,” she explained. “And a nurse. It’s my job to help people. As a paramedic I am morally and legally obliged to render aid whenever I can.” She stepped forward again, raising her empty hands. “You’re healing unnaturally fast,” she went on. “Your stitches are going to need to come out today unless you want them to become permanent.”

 

He looked down at himself. There was a line of stitches along his ribs on the left side. How’d that happen? He wracked his brain. Oh. Yes. He was in… Brooklyn, he thought. He’d come here because this was where the museum said the Target was from. Hydra had tried to recover him within hours of him arriving. He hadn’t wanted to go with them. He didn’t remember anything after that.

 

“James,” the woman said.

 

His head snapped up.  _ James _ . That’s what the museum had said the man with his face was named. James Buchanan Barnes. But that wasn’t him. That was just the man with his face. “Why’d you call me that?” he demanded.

 

“That’s your name, isn’t it?” the woman--Ellie-- asked.

 

He thought about that. It was as good a name as any. He didn’t have a name. Just  _ Soldat _ or  _ Asset _ . If he wasn’t with Hydra anymore, he would need a name, right? He shrugged at the woman. She nodded and smiled at him.

 

“James, are you hungry? You could probably handle some solid food now.”

 

Hungry? There was a hollow feeling in his stomach. He required nutrients and fuel. Yes, this was what  _ hungry _ meant. If the woman offered food, did that mean she was going to put him in the Tank afterwards?

 

He should leave. But his weapons were gone. And his pack. He supposed he could kill the woman and the shiny young man and find his weapons, but he didn’t want to kill them. He didn’t want to kill anyone anymore.

 

“James, I promise you we’re not Hydra,” the woman said softly. “We’re not going to hurt you.”

 

He licked his lips. They’d taken care of him. She wasn’t saying the Words. She didn’t appear to have a Chair. She’d given him a name. Hydra had never done any of those things. He  _ was _ hungry. He swallowed.

 

“May I have a shirt?” he asked softly.

 

The woman gave him one of the shirts from his pack. That was a good sign. Handlers didn’t let him ask for things. And they certainly didn’t give him the things he asked for. Once he pulled the shirt over his head she left him in the living room with the shiny man and went into the kitchen.

 

He stared at the shiny man for a few seconds. The shiny man stared back. Then he waved his hand. “You can really see me?” the shiny man asked incredulously.

 

He blinked. “Yeah,” he said.

 

“That’s so  _ sick _ ,” the shiny man said. “I mean, two fucking years and Ellie’s the only one who can see me, and then  _ you _ come along. What’s with you, man? You got the shining or something?”

 

He didn’t know what the shiny man was talking about, so he didn’t say anything. The woman--Ellie--came back into the kitchen with a steaming bowl and a spoon. She held it out to him. “We need to start with something simple,” she said. “Your stomach probably can’t handle complex carbs and fats right now.”

 

He edges forward so he can take the bowl and retreat again. It’s filled with some kind of grayish mush, sprinkled with a brown powder. The powder probably isn’t dangerous. If it was she would have taken an effort to hide it. He scooped up a spoonful of the mush and puts it in his mouth. It was warm, and the texture was somewhere between sticky and slimy. But it tasted sharp and earthy, a flavor that was both familiar and strange. He liked it. He ate the whole bowl before it had a chance to cool down.

 

Ellie and the shiny man stared at him the whole time he ate. When he was done Ellie held her hand out for the bowl. “Do you want more?” she asked.

 

He stared at her. He was allowed to want more? Was it a trick question? He slowly handed her the bowl and nodded. She smiled at him. “Okay,” she said, and headed back to the kitchen.

 

He was allowed to ask for things. He was allowed to want things. Now he was sure. They  _ weren’t _ Hydra. Ellie came back from the kitchen with another bowl of the mush and a glass of water. She nodded toward the couch.

 

“Sit,” she said. Orders. He didn’t want to follow orders anymore. But she wasn’t Hydra, and she hadn’t tried to hurt him. He sat down. Ellie put the bowl and the glass on the table in front of the couch. “Drink all the water,” she told him. He ate all the mush and drank all the water. The shiny man wouldn’t stop staring at him.

 

“James, I want to check your pulse and you pupillary response, is that okay?” Ellie asked. He frowned at her. “That means I have to touch you,” she added. “Just on your wrist.”

 

He hesitated, and then held out his right arm. He was stronger than her. He knew this. Unless she used the Words, he’d be able to overpower her if she tried to hurt him. But all she did was put two fingers on the inside of his wrist and look at her watch. She touched him for fifteen seconds and then pulled her finger away. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a thin flashlight.

 

“I’m going to check your pupils, now,” she told him. “I’m going to shine the flashlight into your eyes. It’s not going to hurt.”

 

He nodded. She turned the flashlight on and flicked the beam in and out of his eyes for a few seconds. She was right. It didn’t hurt. She sat back, satisfied, and nodded to herself. “You’re doing a lot better than you were two days ago. It’s amazing. I’ve never seen anyone heal so fast.”

 

He didn’t say anything. He’d always healed like this. Wasn’t it normal?

 

Ellie got up and took a couple steps back. “We’ll work you up to solid food over the next couple days and after that you’re good to go.”

 

He blinked at her a few times. Good to go? She wasn’t going to try to keep him here. Of course. He’d already established she was not Hydra. If she wasn’t Hydra, maybe she had no use for him.

 

He heard a key sliding into the lock of the front door and he jumped to his feet, reaching again for a weapon that wasn’t there. Ellie stretched out her hands towards him. “It’s okay,” she said quickly. “It’s okay. That’s just my girlfriend, Rudi. She went out to get some food.”

 

He stayed on his feet, tense as the door swung open to reveal a tiny Asian woman with her dark hair pulled up into a messy bun. She was carrying a double handful of canvas bags and came to a dead halt at the sight of him standing in front of the couch.

 

“Oh,” she said hesitantly. “He’s awake.”

 

She was afraid of him. That was a normal response. Ellie and the shiny man weren’t afraid of him, which is another reason he knew they weren’t Hydra.

 

“James, this is Rudi, my girlfriend. She’s not going to hurt you,” Ellie went on. “It’s okay. You wanna sit back down?”

 

The tiny woman stared back at him, eyes wide. He looked around the room. Tiny woman--Rudi. Tall woman--Ellie. Shiny man--Jamar. Not Hydra. Probably not going to hurt him.

  
“Okay,” he said, and sat back down.


	4. Hope Spot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We have this strange lull from December 25th to December 30th where nothing happens at work, and then the city goes crazy the 31st-1st. Then it goes back to normal. So at the moment I have found time to write while at work. I'm really happy to get chapters out on both The Impossible Year and this one, which proves I'm not ignoring my other projects. Hope everyone's Christmas was merry and Happy Hanukkah!

“So, what the hell do we do with him now?” Rudi asked in a voice barely above inaudible.

Ellie took a deep breath. They were in the kitchen, leaving Jamar to keep an eye on the assassin-- no, on _James_ \--in the living room. Ellie had offered to remove the stitches, but when she got to close to him with the scissors, he’d flinched so hard he’d knocked the coffee table over. After that Ellie had just given him the scissors and a pair of tweezers and left him to take care of it himself.

“I’m pretty sure the drugs are out of his system, or mostly, at least,” Ellie replied. “He should be back on solid foods in two days, tops, judging from how fast he’s healing. After that, he can leave, I guess.”

“Are we not going to address the issue that _Bucky Barnes_ was working for _Hydra_ and tried to kill Captain America?” Rudi demanded, her voice going squeaky again.

Ellie shrugged. “Considering the condition he was in, I think it’s safe to assume he wasn’t working with Hydra willingly. Also, I can’t imagine that Bucky Barnes would _want_ to attack Captain America. My question is, _why_ is he still, you know, _young_ , and how the hell is he healing so quickly?”

Rudi gestured impatiently. “How would that even work? Convincing Bucky Barnes to try to kill Captain America? I mean, those two were like brothers! Their friendship _literally_ ended WWII.”

“Not literally,” Ellie retorted dryly. “And I have no idea. But I’m not asking him any questions. Have you seen him? He’s got the worst case of thousand yard stare I’ve ever seen. He’s been through hell, and recently.” She shook her head. “Let’s just get him onto solid food and then he can go anywhere he wants.”

Rudi chewed on her lower lip. “D’you think Hydra is looking for him?”

Ellie shrugged again. “Probably.” Rudi gave her a nervous look. “Don’t worry about that, babe. It’s gonna be fine. They won’t look for him here.”

“You sure?” Rudi asked.

Ellie reached over and rubbed her arm. “Why would they think that someone would be crazy enough to shelter the guy who tried to kill Captain America?”

“True,” Rudi admitted. “You _are_ pretty crazy.”

“Besides,” Ellie went on confidently. “You can light things on fire by thinking about it. I’d like to see Hydra try and come for him.”

Rudi smiled reluctantly. “Yeah. I _am_ pretty badass.”

“Yes, you are,” Ellie agreed, and leaned forward to kiss her forehead. “Don’t sweat it, Rudi. Everything will be fine.”

XxxXxxX

Taking the stitches out hadn’t hurt much. Or at all, really. Once they were all out Ellie said he could take a shower. She’d given him a towel, showed him the bathroom, and then left him alone. He stared at the shower fixture. He didn’t know how to activate it. He remembered showers, but he’d been pushed under cold sprays and scrubbed down by the handlers.

He wanted to get clean. He smelled horrible. He didn’t like smelling horrible. He was starting to make a list of things he liked and another of things he didn’t like. He was allowed to like and not like things now. He decided to try the knobs. When he turned one the water came out boiling hot. Turn the other and the water was ice cold. He fiddled with both until the temperature was pleasantly warm. There was no handler here. He could take a warm shower if he wanted to.

He was allowed to want things now.

He stripped his clothes off and left them on the floor of the bathroom. They hadn’t smelled pleasant when he’d taken them, and now they smelled even worse. He wouldn’t like putting them back on, but he didn’t have anything else.

When he stepped under the spray his brain went blank for a moment. No wonder the handlers never let him take warm showers. It definitely decreased functionality. He didn’t ever want to get out from under the water. He leaned his forehead against the cool tiles and let the water flow over his shoulders and back, trying not to think about anything at all.

His brain didn’t cooperate. It conjured up pictures, so many of them, all at the same time, of returning to Base, getting sluiced off with icy water, going back into the cold Tank. Always so cold. But now it felt like even his bones might get warm. He didn’t want to think about handlers or Base anymore.

He wondered if the Target was allowed to have hot showers.

He didn’t like thinking about the Target, either, though. Thinking about the Target hurt. Not his skin or his muscles or his bones, but deep inside his chest and inside his head. But now that his brain had latched onto the Target it wouldn’t let go.

The Target had been the first person not scared of him. The handlers and the technicians and the men with guns were all scared of him. Everyone was scared of him. Except for the Target. And now Ellie and Jamar.

The Target hadn’t fought back. He’d said things like _you know me_ and _friend_ and _end of the line_. They were Words, but not Hydra’s Words. The Target had known Words to make him stop. That’s why he’d gone to the museum. To see why the Target knew Words. But he hadn’t learned anything. Just that the Target thought he was someone. Someone good. Someone nobody was afraid of.

Someone not him.

It still didn’t explain how the Target had his Words.

There was a gentle knock on the door and he startled, almost slipping on the slick floor underfoot. He didn’t say anything, but just stared at the door. Was something wrong? Was he supposed to be done? Had Ellie changed her mind and want him to leave?

“James?” Ellie called. “You okay?”

Ah. Status report. “I’m… functional,” he replied, loud enough to be heard through the door.

“Alright,” Ellie said. “Use as much soap and shampoo as you want.”

He heard her walk away and he looked around. There were bottles on the edge of the bathtub and in a shelf hanging from the shower head. A lot of bottles. They were all different colors. He picked one up and read the label. It said _argan oil conditioner for dry hair_. His hair was not dry. It was wet. He put the bottle down.

He found one that said _body wash_ and opened it. It smelled like peaches. He wouldn’t mind smelling like peaches. He liked scrubbing all the dirt and grime from his skin and his hair. He crouched down and held his left arm up to the water, letting it rinse out the interior workings. It was waterproof, but he’d submerged himself in the river after the carriers fell apart. The water would have been contaminated with oil and charred plastics and churned-up silt. If he didn’t get all of that out, the arm would stop working at peak capacity.

The water began to get cooler. That was disappointing. He didn’t want to get out of the shower. But he turned off the water and grabbed the towel he’d left on the counter by the sink. There was another knock on the door. He went to open it. It was Ellie.

Her eyes widened when he opened to door. He wasn’t sure why. She bit her lip and looked like she was trying not to smile. She smiled at him a lot. It was strange.

“Here,” she said, holding out a stack of clothes. “Our neighbor is about your size. I borrowed a few things from him. No underwear, though. You’ll have to go commando until we can get you new stuff.”

He stared at her offering for a minute. “Thank you,” he said. That was correct, he believed. It was polite. He took the clothes from her. He waited to see if she was going to say anything else. She rolled her lips inward and then bared her teeth, not quite a smile.

“Okay, then,” she said. “Just, you know, please make sure you’re dressed when you come out. Rudi… she’s not really into men. And I don’t think Jamar is, either.”

He nodded. That was a simple enough request. She nodded back and left. He finished drying himself off and examined the clothes she’d given him. There was a black short-sleeved shirt that was soft from wear. It said _have you tried turning it off and back on again?_ He didn’t know what he was supposed to turn off and on but he put it on anyway. There was also a pair of shapeless pants with an elastic waistband. They were comfortable and warm.

When he came back to the living room, carrying his old clothes and the used towel, Rudi and Ellie were in the kitchen again and Jamar was nowhere to be seen. He stood for a moment, unsure of how to proceed. Ellie had taken his pack and hadn’t told him where it was. He would like to put his clothes back in the pack. He also wanted his weapons. Not because he wanted to hurt anyone. He just felt better when he had his weapons.

Ellie came out of the kitchen and saw him standing there. “You want me to take your clothes?” she asked. “We’re doing a load anyway and I can throw them in.”

He didn’t understand her meaning. If she took them, would she give them back? He wasn’t used to having things, but he didn’t want to lose them.

“I mean wash them,” Ellie said a moment later. “They kinda smell.” She held her hand out.

“Will you give them back?” he asked.

“Of course,” Ellie said. She made a grabby motion. “Come on. They _really_ smell.”

He gave them over to her. “Can I have my pack?” he asked hesitantly.

Ellie hesitated, holding his clothes and towel with one hand. “Why do you want your pack?” she asked cautiously.

“I have things,” he told her. “They didn’t let me have things.”

She pursed her lips. “You had, like, seventeen knives and two pistols in your pack,” she told him. “I don’t feel comfortable with you having those weapons while you’re living in my apartment.”

She didn’t trust him. That was probably smart of her. She bit her lip. “Wait here.” She took his clothes and left the room, only to return a moment later without his clothes. She held one of his knives out to him, hilt first. “Here. You can have _one_ knife while you’re in our apartment.”

It was the knife he kept clipped at the small of his back, a two-edged, flat-handled knife he could use as easily in his left as his right hand. He took it from her gently, so as not to present a threat. Ellie pressed her lips together. “Okay. Now. I’m _trusting_ you not to murder us in our sleep. Think you can handle that?”

“I don’t want to murder anyone,” he said before he could stop himself.

She smiled at him. “Good. You hungry again? I made soup.”

Rudi stared at him when he entered the kitchen. At his arm, specifically. She crossed the kitchen and leaned over, examining the metal limb closely. He didn’t like her being that close, so he took a step back. Rudi startled and looked up at his face. “Sorry,” she said quickly, and turned red.

“Sit,” Ellie said, pointing at one of the chairs around the table. She put a bowl and a glass of milk on the table in front of the chair. When he sat, he saw the bowl was full of clear broth, rice, and mushy noodles. The milk also didn’t smell like just milk. It smelled sweet.

“It’s a protien shake,” Ellie explained. “You’re not going to get everything you need from liquid food, so you’ll need to drink a lot of those until you’re back on solids.”

The soup was mostly tasteless and the milk was as sweet as it smelled. But when he was finished his stomach was full again. No one talked while they ate. He didn’t say anything either. He didn’t have much to say, anyway.

After he was done eating, he remained sitting at the table, unsure of what he should do next. He was not used to doing nothing. After mission he was cleaned, fed, and put back in the Tank. Now there was no one telling him what to do and no Tank.

Ellie leaned her elbows on the table and looked at him. “James, we don’t have a second bedroom. Is it okay if you sleep on the couch?”

The couch was comfortable. He could remember sleeping on worse things. He nodded. Ellie smiled at him again. Why did she smile so much? “Good,” she said. “We’ll have your clothes washed by tomorrow morning.” He nodded again but didn’t say anything.

Rudi was still staring at his arm. “How’d you get that?” she blurted, and then grimaced, looking over at Ellie, who sighed and shook her head.

He looked down at his arm, opening and closing the fist a few times. He remembered vaguely that he hadn’t always had a metal arm. There was a time it had been flesh and blood. But what had happened between then and now was a distant blur. “It’s my arm,” he said out loud, and looked up. “I think they gave it to me.”

Rudi looked at Ellie again and then back at him. “You mean Hydra?” He nodded and she looked horrified. He didn’t think the arm was _that_ bad. It was just an arm. He dropped his hand under the table to hide it anyway.

Ellie got to her feet. “James, I need to run a couple of errands. Do you want to go with me?”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Rudi demanded before he could reply. “I mean, if Hydra is looking for him…”

“He needs to stretch his muscles,” Ellie told Rudi. “He’s been unconscious for two days.”

“I’ll go with you,” He said before Rudi could say anything else. He looked up at Ellie. “Hydra _is_ looking for me. They’ll hurt you if they find out you helped me. You should be protected.” It was a lot of words to say. He didn’t mean to say that much. He stopped and waited to see what Ellie and Rudi would do. They looked at each other and then Ellie smiled at him _again_. It was starting to get strange. He wished she would stop doing that.

“Okay,” she said. “Sounds good.”

He was allowed to talk. He was allowed to want things, to like and not like things, to have things, to have hot showers, and to talk. There were a lot of things he was allowed to do. So far he had not learned anything he was _not_ allowed to do, except have more than one knife inside the apartment. But if they were leaving the apartment…

“Can I have my guns?” he asked Ellie.

She stopped smiling at him and frowned. He was more used to that expression. “Why do you need your guns?” she asked him.

“Statement: one knife _inside_ apartment,” he reminded her. “We are leaving the apartment. Also, one knife is not conducive to protection.”

Both Ellie and Rudi stared at him, eyes wide. Rudi put her hand over her mouth and giggled. He stared back at her, affronted. He hadn’t said anything funny. Besides, people didn’t _laugh_ at him. Ellie licked her lower lip.

“You know carrying guns is illegal in New York City, right?” she asked him with one eyebrow raised.

He shrugged. He didn’t care about legal or illegal. Hydra certainly didn’t. Ellie stared at him for a moment longer except her eyes were narrow now.

“Okay,” she said after a minute. “You can have the guns, but we’re putting them away as soon as we get back to the apartment. Deal?” Ellie liked to give orders, he thought to himself. But he really didn’t mind following them. Her orders didn’t hurt. He nodded in agreement.

Ellie gave him a pair of jeans borrowed from their neighbor, his own sweatshirt, and his boots back, along with a gentle reminder to change in the bathroom. When he exited the bathroom, she was waiting by the front door, and handed him his guns along with their holsters. He concealed them under his sweatshirt.

It was dark when they left the apartment building. He knew that he had to have come this way before, since he had ended up inside Ellie and Rudi’s apartment, but nothing looked familiar. He stood on the sidewalk for a moment, looking around carefully. Ellie waited for him to finish looking around before she nodded her head in the direction she wanted to go.

He stayed a half step behind Ellie to better watch her six, on high alert for any danger that might threaten her. Hydra had come after him once and he knew they would come after him again. Ellie had been kind to him, helped him. In return, he would keep her safe until he left. Because he would have to leave. He didn’t want Hydra to come looking for him and find Ellie and Rudi and Jamar.

Ellie led him to a small store only two blocks down. The whole time she didn’t look around except to check he was still behind her. If someone had tried to kill her, she would never have seen it coming. It was a very good thing he was with her. She was completely hopeless.

Once they were in the store he stood even closer to her, eying the few other patrons suspiciously as Ellie walked up and down the aisle, a basket over one arm. After a few minutes he stopped to look at what she was buying.

Small bottles of shampoo and body wash, disposable razors, shaving cream, deodorant, toothbrush and toothpaste, and a first aid kit. At one point, she leaned around him, stared at his butt for a few seconds, and then added a package of underwear to her basket.

He didn’t ask why she was buying these things. It wasn’t any of his business. His job was to keep her safe until they got back to the apartment. Maybe Ellie would give him more food. He was hungry again. During the walk back to the apartment, he realized he was also tired. He would need to sleep at least four hours to maintain desirable functionality. But Ellie had said he could sleep on the couch, and he was looking forward to that a little.

Once they were safely inside Ellie’s apartment again, she held out her hand. “I’ll trade you,” she told him.

He hesitated only a moment, and then removed both guns and gave them too her. She handed him the shopping bags. He stood there for a moment, holding them. Did she want him to put them somewhere? She watched him, saying nothing, and then explained, “That’s for you. You didn’t have any toiletries in your backpack.”

He looked at the bags. They were for him. More things he owned. He was starting to get a collection of things. He was going to need a bigger pack. “Thank you,” he said, because he knew it was polite. Ellie nodded back at him.

“You hungry?” she asked him.

“Yes,” he said, relieved. She smiled at him. He _really_ wished she would stop doing that.

XxxXxxX

Sam Wilson had been perfectly happy with his life, thank you very much. He had a good job where he got to help good people, he liked his house, kept in touch with his family, played basketball with his friends on the weekends. Up until a week ago, he had nothing to do with superheroes and he had liked it.

Then Steve Rogers had happened. _On your left_ his ass. No one had told him in any history class he had ever taken that Captain America was a little shit. But he should have guessed the man was a damn force of nature. One minute he was getting lapped by some smart-assed white dude and the next he was attacking an entire damn helicarrier _by himself_. Because that was the kind of thing Captain America made you do.

But Sam Wilson sure as hell didn’t regret a single damn thing about the last few days, even when he ended up on hospital duty because of _course_ Hill and Romanov were “busy” and Fury was getting caught up with his own medical care. It wasn’t that keeping an eye on America’s first superhero recovering from getting the shit beaten out of him was boring. No, it was actually the opposite.

Sam came back to the room, cup of crappy coffee in his hand to find the bed empty and the blankets on the floor. “Shit,” he muttered to himself. “Not _again_.” He did an about-face and went to scowl at the police officer posted at the door. “How the hell does he keep getting past you?” he growled.

The officer blinked and looked inside the room, eyes widening when he saw the empty bed. “Oh, man,” he said. “I don’t believe this shit.”

“At least your excuse is ‘He’s Captain America,’” Sam retorted. “Stay here. I know where he went.”

The last three times this had happened Steve had gone to the same place, so Sam was betting he’d keep up the pattern. He had to cross over to the opposite side of the hospital, dodging frantic orderlies, stressed nurses, and sleep-deprived doctors who were trying to keep up with the sudden influx of patients due to three giant airships falling out of the sky.

Sure enough, Sam found Steve sitting in the chair by the window of Mrs Detweiler’s room, both of them dozing in the sunshine. There were three empty chocolate pudding cups on the table by Mrs Detweiler’s bed. She hoarded them for Steve, Sam had found out two incidents ago.

Sam sighed and walked over to shake Steve’s shoulder. At least he had remembered to bring along his IV stand this time. “Steve. Hey, buddy, wake up.”

Steve blinked awake, pupils dilated, and squinted up at Sam. “Hmrphm,” he grunted, and shrugged Sam’s hand away.

“C’mon, man,” Sam said. “You gotta stay in your room.”

“M’like it here,” Steve mumbled, closing his eyes again.

Sam shook him, harder. “Nuh-uh. You’re not going to sleep. How the hell you keep making it all the way here with as much morphine as you are on, I have no clue, but I am not carrying you back to your room. You’re too damn heavy.”

“Wanna stay here,” Steve whined. “S’warm.”

“I’ll get you an extra blanket when we get back to your room,” Sam told him. He grabbed Steve’s upper arm in one hand and yanked. It had absolutely no effect on the supersoldier, who had two inches and at least fifty pounds on him. But Steve, who miraculously decided to be accommodating, sighed heavily and heaved to his feet. Wearing a hospital gown, boxers, and a pair of socks, he was almost unrecognizable as Captain America, which suited Sam just fine. He had to get his new friend across the whole hospital without anyone stopping them for an autograph.

Not that Steve was in any condition to be meeting his fans. He had a bullet hole in his gut and another in his thigh, a whole mess of broken ribs, a crushed eye socket, as well as nicks, cuts, and bruises over his entire body. He was healing at an incredible rate, but the doctors were keeping him on painkillers at least for another day, mostly because if they didn’t, Steve would probably have broken out of the hospital by now in search of Bucky.

Because Sam’s life just _had_ to get even more complicated. The guy that had wrecked Sam’s car, tried to kill them, destroyed Sam’s wings, and kicked him off the helicarrier just _had_ to be Steve’s dead best friend from World War II. Who was not dead. And was apparently working for Hydra.

Awesome.

But this is what Sam had signed up for when he had let Steve and Natasha in through the back door of his house. And he wasn’t going to complain. After all, how many people could say they’d seen Captain America in nothing but his boxers? Sam was as patriotic as the next guy, but _damn_ if he hadn’t wanted to take a bite of him.

Steve leaned heavily on him as Sam maneuvered him back across the hospital, pausing every now and again because Steve would forget his IV stand and leave it behind, only to draw up short when he reached the end of the IV line.

The police officer was sweating when they made it back to Steve’s room. “Next time, try not to miss him,” Sam said sarcastically as he helped Steve back into the hospital bed. He retrieved the blankets from the floor and tucked Steve in like a child.

“Sam,” Steve slurred. “M’ _hungry_.”

“I’ll get you something to eat, but you know it’s gonna be liquid,” Sam told him. “You’re not supposed to have any solids until that hole in your stomach is completely closed.”

“Don’ want liquids,” Steve complained, closing his eyes.

“Tough shit,” Steve replied. “Stay your ass in bed and I’ll get you some food.”

“‘Kay,” Steve mumbled, and promptly fell asleep.

Sam pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed heavily. He just had to get through the next twenty-four hours and they’d be good.

XxxXxxX

Twenty-four hours later, things were _not_ good. Steve had been taken off the painkillers, and within two hours of the morphine leaving his system, he’d checked himself out of the hospital and was back in Sam’s kitchen, bitching because Sam wouldn’t make him “real” food.

“Yes, I know you have super healing,” Sam said, slamming his spoon onto the counter. “ _Yes_ , I know you need a bazillion calories every day. But you were _gut shot_ three days ago, and you are _not_ going to put yourself back in the hospital eating crap you shouldn’t be.”

For a moment they glared at each other mulishly. Steve Rogers might be Captain America, but Sam was pararescue, and he could out-stubborn the best of them. Especially when it came to post-hospital care. Sam jabbed his spoon in Steve’s direction.

“You are going to eat my momma’s chicken noodle soup, and you are gonna _like_ it,” he growled.

Steve sighed in frustration and scrubbed both hands over his hair, making it stick up in every direction. It made him look young and tired and vulnerable, and some of Sam’s irritation vanished. He could sympathise with Steve’s position. If someone had told him that Riley was alive, but he couldn’t go see him, Sam would be climbing the walls, too.

“I just don’t have _time_ for this,” Steve burst out. “Bucky’s out there, Sam! There’s no telling where he’s going. I _gotta_ find him.”

Sam leaned back against the counter and crossed his arms. “Seems to me Bucky doesn’t want to be found,” he said evenly.

“Doesn’t want to be--” Steve cut himself off. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Sam raised his eyebrows. “You said that Bucky stopped attacking you and then pulled you out of the river, right?”

“Yeah, and?” Steve demanded.

“Okay, so that means that Bucky managed to break through at least part of Hydra’s programming,” Sam went on. “So it follows that he’s now at least partially capable of making decisions on his own.”

“What’s your point?” Steve asked impatiently.

“Bucky went to ground,” Sam told him. “And that was Bucky’s decision. It’s clearly what he wanted, ‘cause he’s not here. So what you’re telling me is that you, like Hydra, are not going to honor Bucky’s wishes, and are gonna make decisions about his life for him.”

“That’s _not_ what I’m--” Steve cut himself off again, his eyes widening. His shoulders slumped. “Oh,” he said softly.

“I’m not even going to pretend to know what is going on in Bucky’s head right now,” Sam continued gently. “But I can damn sure tell you that if Bucky wanted to be here, there is not a lot that could stop him.”

“Hydra could,” Steve muttered, and looked up, his blue eyes worried. “What if Hydra got a hold of him again?”

Sam took a deep breath and considered his next words carefully. “If what you want to do is to make sure Hydra doesn’t recapture Bucky, then I am all for it. One hundred percent. But I’m not gonna be the guy that violates his agency after all the shit he’s gone through. I don’t know what Hydra did to him; I don’t _want_ to know what Hydra did to him, but it can’t be good. And if he’s not ready to face you just yet, I’m not gonna let you force the issue. Got it?”

Steve scowled. “What makes you think you can stop me?” he muttered.

Sam gave him a look. “Because I _know_ you don’t think I’m wrong. You don’t wanna hear it, but you know I’m right.”

Steve scowled for a few more seconds before slouching in his chair. “Yeah,” he admitted softly.

Sam turned around to stir the giant pot of soup he’d made from his mother’s recipe. “You hear anything back from Natasha?” he asked.

“Not yet,” Steve replied, sounding tired. Sam ladled out a generous bowlful of the soup and put it on the table in front of Steve with a spoon. Steve looked tired, too. It was easy to forget, even for Sam, that Steve wasn’t just Captain America. He was a twenty-nine-year old combat vet with a whole lot of baggage and a hero complex the size of Texas. Sam did not know what had happened in Steve’s life that made him try to carry the world on his shoulders, but Sam _did_ know that Steve was not Atlas, and he couldn’t do it alone.

“Eat,” Sam instructed. “Get some rest. Wait for Natasha to get back. Then we’ll go to work.”

“Yeah,” Steve said, staring blankly at the bowl of soup. Sam poked his shoulder.

“Before it gets cold,” he prompted.

Steve blinked and looked up at Sam. “I shouldn’t be here,” he said, his blue eyes intense.

“What are you even talking about?” Sam demanded.

Steve shook his head. “You don’t need to be taking care of me. You have your own life to get back to. God, Sam, I’m so sorry. I dragged you into this whole mess without even thinking twice.”

Sam crossed his arms over his chest again. “Let’s get a couple of things straight, Cap. The only one who dragged me into this mess was me. And I’m not in the habit of abandoning my friends just because they need a little work.”

Steve gave him an odd, searching look. “We are… friends. I guess? Aren’t we?” he asked, sounding uncertain.

“Well, I don’t tear down evil Nazi organizations with just _anyone_ ,” Sam retorted. “Of _course_ we’re friends. After the shit we went through?” Sam jabbed a finger in Steve’s direction. “Which means you are entitled to crash in my guest room, eat me out of house and home, and drive me up the wall.”

That teased a wan smile out of Steve. “Thank you, Sam,” he said softly. “I don’t deserve that.”

“No you do not,” Sam agreed. “So you better be damn thankful.”


	5. Character Development

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heeeeeey. So, just fyi, my parents are in town, so I took some time off to hang with them, which meant no writing because I was crazy busy with the fam. We had a lot of fun but I am back to work now and I thought I might be able to squeeze in a little writing. I know this story is not nearly as popular as The Impossible Year but writing it keeps my creative juices flowing, and helps me with keeping both stories afloat, so please be patient with me.

The darkness was painful. It was filled with lightning and the smell of blood and voices screaming. Hands clawed at his skin, tearing pieces away bit by bit. Then the darkness was gone and he was in the Chair, being pushed back against the backrest, bite guard in his mouth.

 _“Soblyudeniye budut voznagrazhdeny,”_ the handler told him. _“Uspokoysya, Soldat.”_

The soothing voice did nothing to calm him. He didn’t _want_ to go back to the chair. The Chair _hurt_. The Chair meant mission. But he couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t stop the arms from descending and clamping around his skull and…

“James!”

He burst into motion, lunging up off the couch and tackled the shadowy figure standing over him. They tumbled over a low table, knocking it out of the way. The figure didn’t struggle when he pinned them to the ground, his metal hand around their throat.

“ _Ne raz,_ ” he growled. “ _Nikogda ne_.”

“Get the fuck offa her!” yelled a male voice in his ear, right before he was grabbed by the shoulders and yanked backwards with surprising strength. He fell on his ass but got to his feet in one smooth motion, yanking the knife free from the waistband of his pants.

“Jamar, no!” said the figure on the ground, voice raspy from being strangled.

“I _told_ you he was gonna fuck us over,” replied the male voice.

He crouched, looking around, knife held in one hand, waiting for the next attack. It never came. The last vestiges of the dream evaporated, and he realized he wasn’t at Base. There was no handler and no Chair. He was in an apartment. And it was Ellie, still on the ground, her breathing labored.

The light flicked on, and he looked up sharply. Rudi stood in the entrance to the hallway, eyes wide. “Oh, my god, what happened?” she gasped, and started to move forward. He couldn’t help himself. He reacted without thinking, flinching away and raising his knife, ready to fend off an attack.

“Stop!” Ellie said firmly, holding up a hand towards Rudi. Rudi froze on the spot, her eyes flicking from Ellie to him and back. Ellie slowly sat up, rubbing her throat with one hand. There were already bruises forming in the shape of his hand. “James?” she asked gently. “Do you know where you are?”

It took more effort than it should have to nod. Yes. He was in Ellie and Rudi’s apartment. He had come here three days ago, even though he didn’t remember actually coming here because he was detoxing off the drugs Hydra had given him.

Ellie got to her feet, still moving slowly, not making any threatening moves. She put her hand on her chest. “James, do you remember me? I’m Ellie. I’m your friend.” He nodded again, tightly. It was good to hear her talk, to say things that weren’t Words. “Were you dreaming?” Ellie asked.

He swallowed. He didn’t want to think about that. He didn’t want to think about the Chair, or Handlers, or Words. He wasn’t with Hydra anymore. He never wanted to go back.

“It’s okay,” Ellie said gently. “You’re safe. No one is going to hurt you. Can you say that for me?”

The words stuck in his throat and didn’t want to be said. He shook his head fractionally. Ellie only nodded slowly. “Okay. That’s fine. I want you to take three deep breaths,” she told him. “We’ll do it together, okay?”

He breathed in and out at her instruction, three times, and it did help, a little. His heart rate was returning to baseline. When Ellie moved towards him, he didn’t flinch away, not even when she touched his right hand. “Why don’t you give me your knife, James,” she prompted softly. He unclenched his fingers and let her take it from him. He should never have had it. He could have hurt someone.

He _had_ hurt someone. He could see the marks around Ellie’s neck. That was non-compliance. There’d be punishment.

But Ellie was just standing in front of him, very still, handing his knife over to Jamar, who carried it over to the side table while Rudi stared at it in his hand. Then Ellie reached out with one hand. He tensed but didn’t pull away. Whatever punishment she administered, he would accept. He deserved it.

Ellie put her hand on his arm, the flesh one, and nudged him gently back towards the couch. “Sit,” she told him. He sat. She sat next to him, her hand still on his arm. “Rudi, why don’t you make everyone a cup of tea?” she said softly.

“O-okay,” Rudi said, sounding uncertain. She padded into the kitchen, eying him distrustfully as she went.

“For the record, I always thought this was a bad idea,” Jamar said mulishly, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Shut up, Jamar,” Ellie said in the same gentle voice. “It wasn’t your decision.” She patted his arm, her hand cold against his fever-flushed skin. “James, can you hear me?”

He nodded but still didn’t speak. He wished she would get the punishment over with. He didn’t want to wait. But she didn’t do anything, she just kept talking. “I grew up in Switzerland,” she told him. “At an orphanage in Bern. And every winter, when it snowed for the first time, the Sisters would bundle us all up and turn us out into the yard to play. I always loved the snow. As far back as I could remember, that day, the first snow, was my favorite day of the year. Even better than Christmas. It was so beautiful, and peaceful. Until we started a snow fight, of course.”

He listened to her talk. Her voice was calm and quiet, not angry. How could she not be angry? He had hurt her, threatened her. But she sat next to him like nothing had happened, her hand on his arm. He glanced at her face and away quickly, finding Jamar standing on the opposite side of the living room, arms crossed and scowling.

Jamar had stopped him from hurting Ellie. He wasn’t sure how. He was stronger than normal people. Jamar shouldn’t have been able to pull him away. Which meant Jamar was strong. He wondered if Jamar was strong because he was shiny, or if he was shiny because he was strong.

Rudi came back into the living room, carrying a tray with three mugs. She had to put the coffee table back upright before she could put the tray down. Ellie picked up a mug and put it in his hands. The ceramic was very warm, and steam rose from the amber liquid. There were words printed on the ceramic. He turned the mug so he could read them. _I have caffeine you may speak now_.

Rudi took her own mug and perched nervously on the edge of the armchair. She stared nervously at him from the corner of her almond-shaped eyes. Ellie touched his arm again, drawing his eyes back to her. “Drink the tea,” she told him. “It’ll make you feel better.”

He glanced over at Jamar, who was still glaring at him angrily. “What about Jamar?” he asked.

Jamar blinked, lowering his crossed arms. Ellie looked between him and Jamar for a moment. “What about Jamar?” she echoed.

“You didn’t make him tea,” he pointed out.

Jamar groaned and dragged his hand over his face. Rudi leaned forward. “Wait,” she said, forgetting to be nervous. “Are you saying _he_ can see Jamar?” she demanded, her voice squeaking.

“Yeah, apparently,” Ellie said sheepishly.

“Unbelievable!” Rudi burst out, slamming her mug onto the coffee table. “How is it _he_ can see your ‘friends’ and _I_ can’t?”

“I don’t know,” Ellie said with a shrug. He frowned, looking around at his three hosts.

“Can… she not see him?” he asked Ellie in a low voice.

Ellie licked her lower lip. “No,” she said carefully. “You see, James, Jamar is… well, he’s…”

“I’m dead,” Jamar said bluntly. “I died two years ago. Shot in the gut.”

He blinked. “Gut shots hurt,” he said without thinking, and then frowned. He could remember the feeling of a bullet punching through his stomach, pressing his hands to the wound, blood slipping through his fingers, getting strapped to a table while men in masks and white coats cut into his belly looking for the bullet…

“James, I need you to breathe,” someone said close by, and there was a gentle hand on his flesh arm. He focused on the touch, cold fingers on his warm skin. “Inhale, and exhale. Good. Again. Inhale, and exhale. One more. Inhale, and exhale. Good. Are you back?”

He blinked his way back to the present. Something crunched in his metal hand and he looked down. He was clutching the remains of his mug. The carpet under his hands was wet, scattered with ceramic shards.

“Is he having flashbacks or something?” Jamar asked. He was closer now, and not glaring anymore.

“It’s okay,” Ellie said gently. “He’s going to be okay.”

Suddenly the room felt very small and very warm. He needed to get away. He needed air. He couldn’t breathe. He lunged away from the couch towards the still-open window. Ellie yelled something behind him, but he didn’t stop. He slipped out the window as easy as breathing and scaled the fire escape until he reached the roof.

The roof was empty, and as quiet as you could get in the middle of a city. He could hear cars and voices and music distantly. He sat on the short wall around the flat roof, feeling the brick, still warm from the sun, under his flesh hand. The sky was empty and black overhead, the stars washed out from the lights. But he could remember them, their placements.

He was not used to remembering. He was punished for remembering. But it was happening to him and he couldn’t make it stop. He remembered getting shot, and it happened _before_ . Before the carriers, before the Target... _before_ . Things had happened to him _before_. He pulled up the t-shirt he was wearing. There was no scar, no trace that he had ever been shot. He used his left hand to touch the spot he remembered the bullet entering; two inches to the left of his navel. There.

He remembered other wounds, now, too. A knife here. Broken nose. Dislocated shoulder. Broken fingers. Burns. He remembered men in white coats with hands that hurt, touching, grabbing, tearing, cutting. He remembered the pain, but only until they put him back into the tank, and then it was just cold until they woke him up to make him forget again.

He wasn’t allowed. They would come for him, find him, and put him in the Chair, make him forget. They would kill Ellie and Rudi for helping him. They probably wouldn’t be able to kill Jamar, since he was already dead. For a moment he wondered if all dead people came back shiny, if all the people he’d hurt were walking around still. He stopped thinking about that right away.

He should leave, now. Just go. Jump onto the next roof and start running. Ellie and Rudi were in danger, and they had been kind to him. He didn’t want them to get hurt. If he left now maybe Hydra wouldn’t know they had helped him.

He had no weapons, no supplies, no money. He didn’t need any. He could find what he needed, steal what he couldn’t find. He remembered missions where he’d been awake weeks, even months, travelling through enemy terrain to get to his target without a handler. Why had he never tried to leave before? Why was now different?

He knew why. The man in blue. The Target. He had said Words, Words to make him stop, Words that let him think clearly for the first time in… well, as far as he could remember. He still didn’t know how the Target had had Words like that. The museum hadn’t told him much.

He shook his head. He was letting himself get distracted. He needed to go, get as far away as possible. He got to his feet, eying the distance to the next roof. There was a faint noise behind him and he spun around. Someone was climbing up the fire escape. He hesitated and he didn’t know why.

Ellie’s head popped up over the low wall and she caught sight of him immediately. When she scrambled onto the roof he saw she was carrying a bag slung over one shoulder. He stayed where he was, watching and waiting. She could be coming to punish him now, alone and away from the others. When she got closer he saw the marks around her neck. They were already a deep purple-black. He frowned. The bruises should not have developed so quickly.

“It’s okay,” Ellie said gently. “Why don’t we sit down?” She sat down on the wall next to him and patted the brick. “Sit, please, James.”

He slowly sat down, a careful distance away from her, and studied her from the corner of his eye, his head down in a submissive posture. She opened her bag and reached in. He couldn’t help flinching, just a little, but all she pulled out was a plastic bottle full of milk and a sandwich wrapped in paper.

“I’ve noticed you’ve got a really fast metabolism,” Ellie said, holding the bottle out to him. “You’re probably hungry all the time, aren’t you?”

He stared at her, unsure of himself for a minute. “Are you going to punish me?” he blurted, before he lost his courage. She froze, eyes wide.

“Why would I--” she abruptly cut herself off, and her expression twisted, for a moment so full of anger and hatred that he thought she might lunge for him, fingers clawing for his throat and for a split second he thought he might let her. Then her expression was serene and calm again. She shook the bottle of milk slightly. “Take it,” she told him. He took it hesitantly.

“I’m not going to punish you,” she told him calmly. “I’m not _ever_ going to punish you. No one will. Not anymore. Do you understand? _No one_ has the right to punish you.”

He stared hard at the bottle of milk in his hand. This was all still so new. Thinking, making decisions, not liking things, and now no punishment. Life was very complicated outside of Hydra. He wondered if his mind would keep everything straight.

“James?” Ellie asked softly. He dragged his gaze up but it caught on the bruises around her throat, not making it up to her eyes. “Can I ask you some questions?”

He shrugged. He certainly couldn’t stop her. She cleared her throat. Her voice didn’t sound so scratchy anymore. That was odd, too. Her throat should still be swollen.

“Do you… remember… anything? Before Hydra?” she asked softly, hesitantly.

He flinched involuntarily. He wasn’t allowed to remember. They would come and put him in the Chair and it would hurt and then the Tank and it was so cold…

He jumped when she touched his right hand, her skin much colder than his. He took a deep breath. Asphalt, car fumes, and the faint aroma of garbage and cooking food. Brooklyn. He’d run from Hydra and he would do it again. He never had to go back.

“Not very much,” he said, the words heavy on his tongue. “Just… pieces.”

Ellie nodded slowly, watching his face with a sad expression. “Do you remember things while you were with Hydra?” she asked.

He jerked his head in a nod. She kept her hand on his hand, grounding him. “Okay,” she said. “Last question. How did they make you forget?”

The Chair. He couldn’t move his hands or his feet. The bite guard tasted like rubber and iron and all he could smell was blood. He couldn’t see, not while the lightning flowed through his brain, couldn’t hear anything except for his own screaming, could barely breathe, and it hurt, it hurt, it hurt…

“James, you need to breathe,” he heard distantly. “Can you hear me? James? I’m holding your hand, can you feel that?” His hand was squeezed, but not by restraints. “Focus, James. Focus on my voice. When I was a little girl I used to get nightmares. Horrible nightmares. And I was too afraid to tell the sisters. I didn’t want to be a bother. So I would crawl under my bed and sleep there, to hide from the monsters. One day I slept through breakfast and Sister Mary Clements went to look for me. She found me still asleep under my bed. When I woke up and I told her what had happened, she taught me something that I still use to this day. When I’m having a nightmare, I count my fingers. If I can’t count all the way to ten, then I know it’s not real, and I wake up.”

The steady cadence of her voice was soothing. He could focus on her voice and forget about everything else for a moment. When she fell silent he realized that she was holding his hand now and he was clutching back with enough force to be painful, but she didn’t seem affected.

He blinked a couple of times and focused on her face. She smiled encouragingly at him. “You don’t have to answer the question if you don’t want to,” she told him.

Right. She had asked a question. He licked his lips. “They put me in a chair,” he said hoarsely. He didn’t recognize the sound of his own voice. “Strapped me down. Parts went over my head, my face. Ran electricity through it, into my head. Hurt. Hurt a lot.”

Ellie bit her lower lip. For a moment she looked like she was going to throw up. She nodded slowly. “Okay,” she said after a minute. “Thank you for telling me.”

He shrugged again. It didn’t matter, telling her. She put the sandwich she was still holding down onto the wall in between them. “That actually kind of makes sense, now,” she said, almost to herself.

He tilted his head at her. “I don’t…” he started. She took in a deep, sudden breath.

“They altered your brain structure, your brain chemistry,” she said, staring down at their joined hands. “Multiple times, over many years. That’s probably why you can see Jamar.”

He thought about Jamar instead of the chair. “Is that why he’s shiny?” he asked.

Ellie laughed--short and surprised. “Yeah,” she said. “That’s why he’s shiny.”

“Are there others?” he asked. “Like Jamar?”

Ellie nodded slowly. “Yeah,” she said again. “Sometimes, when people die, they don’t move on. They’re scared, or they have unfinished business. Sometimes they’re just restless. I can see them. All of them. And when they’re near me, they can interact a little, with the real world. As long as they stay near me, they can move things, touch things. I was the only one who could see them and talk to them. Until you.”

She looked sad. She’d never looked sad before. He chewed on the words for several seconds, but then decided to ask. Ellie seemed to like it when he asked questions. “Who did it to you?”

She blinked and looked up at him. “What?”

“Who made you see them?” he asked.

Ellie’s mouth fell open. “No, no. No one did this to me. I was… I was born with it, I guess. My mother, she was like me. She saw them too. I first started seeing them when I was, uh, twenty-seven.” She grimaced. “Uh, the first one I ever saw was my husband. He died. In a car accident. He stayed with me for four years before he…” she trailed off, gaze slipping off into the distance.

He didn’t say anything. He didn’t know what to even say. Ellie sighed faintly and shook her head. “Anyways,” she said, and looked up at him, one side of her mouth curled up. “I’ve been talking to dead people for a long time. Jamar’s stuck around a lot longer than anyone since Armin. He’s been with us for two years. I think Rudi’s getting tired of him, but I can’t force him to leave. He’s literally all alone in the world. I’m all he’s got.”

Ellie was kind to other people, too. That was why Jamar had defended her. All the more reason he should leave, as soon as possible. Ellie was good and she didn’t deserve to get hurt by Hydra. But she was holding his hand and she’d brought him food and she wasn’t afraid of him.

On the street below, a vehicle turned into the alley between the buildings and stopped. He looked down involuntarily, scanning for any dangers. It was a matte black SUV, sitting in the alley with its lights off. He heard another vehicle slow to a halt behind the building and stop, the engine shutting off. He let go of Ellie’s hand and got to his feet.

“What is it?” Ellie asked, and looked down into the alley. “James?”

He motioned at her to stay back and padded across the tarry roof to the rear of the building, looking down into the narrow side street. Another black SUV sat outside the apt complex. The passenger door opened, and a man in black body armor stepped out, strapping on a helmet as he did.

It was like a switch in his brain. Suddenly the world was no longer big and loud and confusing. It was narrow and sharp. He turned on his heel and prowled back to Ellie, who was on her feet now. Before she could speak he grabbed her arm and started hauling her towards the fire escape.

“What is going on?” she demanded, but didn’t struggle. Preoccupied as he was, he still spared a thought to how utterly _hopeless_ she was.

“Hydra recovery team,” he told her in a clipped voice. “Nine minutes to clear the building to the eighth floor. Six minutes until we’re boxed in. Need transport. Do you have a vehicle?”

“No,” Ellie replied, and she was surprisingly calm. They reached the fire escape and when he let her go she swung onto the ladder with easy grace. “But I know how to hotwire one.”

Okay. Maybe not _completely_ hopeless.

Rudi and Jamar were still in the living room when they re-entered via the window. “Don’t panic, but Hydra has the building surrounded,” Ellie announced, right before Rudi started the panic. Ellie ignored her and disappeared into the bedroom while he went to check the door. He opened it, stuck his head out, and listened. They were already inside the building. Five minutes.

Ellie came back out of the bedroom with his pack and tossed it at him. He snatched it easily out of the air and dug through it, retrieving his pistols and a handful of the knives. He didn’t have enough ammunition to hold off an entire recovery team, but he had an advantage: they wouldn’t be trying to kill him. Of course, they could possibly use Words.

He turned to Ellie, who was trying to talk Rudi down. “Ear plugs,” he said. She frowned at him. He pointed to his ear. “Ear plugs.”

“I got it,” Jamar announced, annoyed, and went into the kitchen. He came out with a small plastic bag and shoved it at him. “What the fuck do you need these for?”

“They might have Words,” he said shortly, and shoved a bright orange foam pellet into each of his ears. He went back to the window and looked down. The street below was clear. He motioned to Ellie. “Go,” he told her, pointing down towards the street. “Take Rudi and Jamar.”

She shook her head. He couldn’t hear what she was saying but he could read her lips. “I’m not leaving you,” she insisted.

“I can’t fight them and protect you,” he told her shortly. “Go. Hurry.”

She gave him an annoyed look and turned back to Rudi, putting her hands on the other woman’s shoulders. He turned away from her, scanning the room. He kicked the coffee table out of the way and pulled the sofa away from the wall. It would provide enough cover for a few minutes, at least.

He saw Ellie approach him out of the corner of his eye and turned around. “Come with us,” her mouth said. “You don’t have to stay.”

He shook his head. “You’ll need a head start. You run, and you don’t look back.”

She looked stubborn, like she was going to argue, and then abruptly whirled around. He turned his back on her again and went over to a book case. It was heavy, solid wood. He tipped it over onto its side and shoved it in front of the door, and then wedged the coffee table between the downed case and the one still standing.

He angled the couch so the window was behind him, giving him an exit. The front door jumped open, the frame splintering, and hit the bookcase. He ducked behind the couch and waited.

XxxXxxX

Rudi and Jamar were waiting for Ellie when she dropped from the fire escape to the sidewalk. The side, front, and rear entrances were covered by Hydra agents, but no one was watching the fire escape. “Go!” she ordered, pointing across the street.

“Oh my god,” Rudi panted. “Oh my god, this is actually happening. There are bad guys after us!”

“Just breathe,” Ellie ordered. There was a battered old delivery van parked on the street across from their apartment building. Ellie tried the driver side door and it was miraculously open. She slid into the driver’s seat and hooked her fingernails in the plastic casing under the steering wheel, ripping it aside with ease.

“When did you learn how to hotwire a car?” Jamar demanded from the back seat while Rudi climbed into the passenger side.

“California in the 90’s,” Ellie replied, finding the right wires and twisting them together. The engine sputtered a couple of times and then turned over. “You guys wait here.”

Rudi reached over and grabbed Ellie’s arm. “You can’t go back,” she said frantically.

“I can’t leave James by himself.”

“He’s a soldier,” Rudi said. “And an assassin. He’ll be fine.”

“Hydra had him for _seventy years_ , Rudi,” Ellie insisted. “He’s already traumatized. There’s no telling what they’ll do to him.”

“You could get shot!” Rudi protested.

Ellie pulled her arm out of Rudi’s grip. “I’ve been shot before,” she said curtly. “I’m not leaving him behind. Wait here for fifteen minutes. If I’m not back, head to your parent’s place in Queens. I’ll meet you there.”

“Ellie, no!” Rudi called, but Ellie slid out of the driver’s seat and slammed the door. She ran back across the nearly-empty street, avoiding the single car that was trying to get by. She didn’t take the fire escape, heading instead to the side entrance. She’d come up behind the Hydra agents, catch them off-guard.

There was only one guard at the side entrance in the alley. Ellie didn’t bother with subtlety and charged him, counting on the fact that she was a little faster and a little stronger than a normal human. As she ran she flung her hand out at the agent’s feet. Ice flowed up from the ground over his boots and he cursed, tugging futilely to get free. Ellie pulled her right fist back, ice flowing over her clenched fingers, and swung at the agent’s jaw as hard as she could.

The ice around her hand shattered on impact, cutting into the man’s skin. His head snapped back, slamming his helmet into the side of the building. He slumped over, the ice around his legs keeping him upright. Ellie pushed past him into the building and headed straight for the stairs. She charged up eight flights of stairs without losing her breath, but the closer she got to the eighth floor, the more apprehensive she got.

She thought there ought to be more noise. Silenced gunfire, maybe. The thump of bodies against walls and floors. _Something_. When she reached the landing on the eighth floor, she paused for a moment, listening. There it was, faintly, the thump of flesh against flesh, the occasional grunt. How were the neighbors not hearing this?

Ellie eased the door open and peered into the corridor. She could hear the sounds coming from her apartment, whose door was standing open, the frame splintered. And yet there was no one in the hallway, investigating the strange noises. She pushed the door fully open and jogged down the hallway. Just as she reached the door, it slammed closed with a loud bang.

Ellie grimaced and pushed at the door. It didn’t budge. She set her shoulder to it and shoved hard with all her strength. It sprang open about eight inches and jammed against something hard, the door cracking along the middle. Ellie could see two black-clad bodies on her living room floor, blood puddling on the cheap carpet. She squeezed into the room. The noises were coming from the bedroom so she crept past another body in the hallway and peered into the room.

James was on his knees, back bowed so his forehead was almost on the carpet. He had a Hydra agent holding onto each of his arms, twisted up behind him, while a third trained a rifle at the back of his head. A fourth agent knelt in front of James, talking to him quietly in Russian. Ellie only knew a few phrases in Russian and couldn’t follow the rapid-fire spit of words. James was breathing heavily, his body trembling with restrained effort.

Ellie knew she had one shot before her advantage of surprise was gone, and the logical choice was the man with the gun. But James had said something about words. She guessed they had conditioned him to respond to vocal commands. So when she stepped into the doorway and raised her hand, the blast of ice struck the man kneeling in front of James, flinging him across the room.

The man with the rifle swung the weapon up towards her but Ellie made a motion as if she was throwing something overhand. A long, needle-sharp dart of ice sliced through the air to bury itself in the man’s relatively unprotected neck with a gout of dark red blood.

The remaining two agents dropped their hold on James’ arms, scrabbling for their weapons, but James straightened, reached behind him, and grabbed their legs, yanking forward to knock them on their backs. He spun to his feet with surprising grace and stomped on one agent’s face, driving his metal fist into the face of the other.

For a moment he stood still, looking dazedly down at the two agents, his chest heaving. Ellie hesitated, and then stepped forward, hand outstretched. “James?” she called softly. “Hey. Can you hear me?”

He jerked his head towards her, eyes lifting to meet her face. He looked like a startled animal, caught in the headlights, as if any sudden motion would frighten him away. Ellie stopped moving forward and lowered her hand. “You okay?”

The first agent Ellie had struck, the one who’d been talking, stirred with a groan and tried to push himself upright. James moved before Ellie could react, crossing the room and landing a bone-crunching kick in the agent’s mouth. He fell limp again and did not move.

“James, we have to leave,” Ellie prompted. She stepped into the room again. She was back in the apartment, she might as well grab a few things. James flinched when she got near him but she edged past him to the closet, digging around the back until she found a non-descript black duffel bag and swung it over her shoulder.

“Let’s go,” she told James. He didn’t move and kept staring at her, like he could hear her but not understand her words. She pointed at the doorway. “Move,” she ordered. He jerked forward and then started walking robotically, as if he was trapped in a dream.

As they crossed the living room, there was a flash of orange-red light from the window, like firelight, quickly extinguished. Ellie froze for a moment. “Rudi,” she breathed, and then bolted towards the door, wrenching the bookcase out of the way and sprinted toward the stairs.

By the time she reached the street, the beat-up van she’d hotwired was fully engulfed in flames. “ _Rudi_!” Ellie screamed, and then ran across the street, dropping the duffel bag onto the sidewalk. There were two bodies on the sidewalk behind the van, both clad in black armor, both of them smoking and giving off a disconcertingly hearty smell of roasting meat.

Ellie found Rudi a couple yards further up the sidewalk, lying sprawled on her back, brown eyes staring blankly up at the night sky. There was a small, neat hole in her forehead, just over her right eye that leaked a trickle of blood. She lay absolutely still.

All the strength went out of Ellie’s body and she landed on her hands and knees, hard enough to bruise and scrape. She couldn’t breathe in enough to scream, couldn’t breathe enough to cry. Everything around her went muffled and still.

 _It happened again_ , she thought numbly. _I lost them again, again, again_.

Then she thought, _I did this. My fault_.

Her eyes burned but they were dry, like her throat, her brain sluggish with shock. She didn’t struggle when a strong hand circled her bicep and hauled her to her feet. It was James, she realized. Not that she cared. It could have been Hydra and she still wouldn’t have fought them. James looped his arm around her waist and half-supported, half-dragged her down the street. They made it two blocks before he stopped in front of an older-model SUV with chipped green paint.

James used his metal hand to break the rear passenger window and unlocked the car, throwing Ellie’s duffel onto the back seat. Then he bundled Ellie into the passenger seat. She leaned against the door, forehead to the window, and tried to remember how to breathe. In through the nose, out through the mouth. And again.

She didn’t turn to look when James got into the driver’s seat, or when the engine sputtered to life. She stared out the window as Brooklyn began to slide by. It always ended like this: running. She’d thought she’d been safe. Thought she could finally settle down, find a place to belong.

She’d been wrong, and Rudi was dead because of it.

Ellie closed her eyes and didn’t think about anything else for a long time.

XxxXxxX

Russian translations:

“Compliance will be rewarded.”

“Stay calm, Soldier.”

“Not again… not ever.”


	6. Last Rites

It was dawn when Ellie opened her eyes and looked around. They were stopped at a gas station somewhere out of the city, off the freeway. The passenger side of the SUV was open and James stood next to her, watching her with a wary expression.

 

Ellie cleared her throat and swiped a hand down her face. It came away dry. “Yeah?” she asked hoarsely. “What is it?”

 

“Gas station,” James said, nodding to the sign by the road.

 

Ellie frowned and looked around again. They weren’t parked by the pumps, but rather in the corner of the parking lot furthest from the building. “Okay?” she said slowly.

 

“We need gas,” James said patiently.

 

“Oh,” she muttered, feeling stupid. She twisted and grabbed her duffel bag from the backseat, pulling it into her lap. She unzipped it and pulled out the leather jacket on top, revealing multiple bundles of twenty dollar bills, held together by rubber bands. She handed James a bundle.

 

“That’s five hundred dollars,” she told him. “Go inside and ask for forty dollars worth of gas on pump… uh... two.”

 

James peeled two bills from the bundle and shoved the rest in his pocket before starting to walk away. 

 

“James!” Ellie called. He turned back around. “Can you get some bottled water? And something salty. Please?” He nodded and started walking towards the building again.

 

Ellie got out of the passenger side and circled over to the driver’s side. James had left it running, so she was able to park it by pump two before untwisting the wires and letting the engine turn off. She waited for James to return.

 

He handed her a small plastic bag and then stood still, hands at his side, watching her. Ellie looked into the bag. There were two bottles of water, a package of peanuts, a package of beef jerky, and a bag of potato chips. “Thanks,” she told him dully, and put the bag in the car. He continued to watch her as she pumped the gas, his gaze occasionally flicking away to scan their surroundings.

 

“Are you functional?” he asked after a silent few minutes.

 

Ellie blinked a couple of times and turned to look at him. “What?” she asked, unsure she had heard him correctly.

 

“You’ve been compromised,” James explained. “Are you functional or are you impaired? Do you require recalibration?”

 

Ellie stared at him for a couple of heartbeats. “No, I’m not fucking  _ functional _ ,” she snarled at him abruptly. His eyes widened, but he stayed his ground. “My girlfriend was  _ murdered _ last night,” Ellie went on. “I just lost her, my  _ home _ , my  _ job _ .  _ Fuck _ .” Ellie collapsed against the SUV. “It doesn’t get easier,” she muttered to herself.

 

James was still watching her, wide-eyed and wary, like she was going to lash out at him any minute. She belatedly realized that he might be thinking she blamed him for what happened, for Rudi. She rubbed her face again. 

 

“My husband died,” she said, shuffling her feet. “Car accident. Car went into the water. I pulled us out. He didn’t make it. I thought… for years… that it was my fault. I didn’t save him fast enough.” She paused, glancing up at his face. He had no expression. “Then I realized he was dead as soon as we hit the water. Nothing I could have done.”

 

Ellie straightened and looked James in the eye. “Rudi was dead before we got out of the building,” she told him, her voice soft. “There was nothing we could have done. Not our fault.” She clenched her jaw. “Hydra killed Rudi. Not us.”

 

James looked at the ground, then back up at her. “They’ll be looking for you,” he told her.

 

Ellie nodded. “I know.”

 

He twitched his head to the side, his hands clenching spasmodically. “They’re looking for me,” he said. “You… you should go. Hide. Maybe they won’t find you.”

 

Ellie stared at him again, but he wouldn’t meet her eye. He was thinking of her safety. How could someone as clearly abused and traumatized as he was still manage to think of others first? “No,” she said after a moment. “No, we have a better chance together.”

 

He frowned, looking up at her. “Are you… do I need to be recalibrated? Are you going to --”

 

“ _ No _ ,” Ellie cut him off firmly. “No one’s getting recalibrated. I’m not Hydra, James. We don’t do that shit anymore, okay?”

 

He looked confused for a moment. The gas pump shut off and Ellie busied herself for a moment replacing the nozzle and screwing the gas cap back on.

 

“Is there a mission?” James asked when she was done.

 

“Yeah,” Ellie told him. “Finding someplace safe to regroup and recover. Then figuring what the hell to do next.”

 

Something clicked in his brain, because he stood a little straighter, his eyes a little clearer. “Mission parameters?” he questioned.

 

Ellie reached into the bag on the driver’s seat and pulled out a water bottle and the bag of jerky. She handed both to him. “Hydrate and refuel,” she told him. “And I’m driving. I know someplace we can go.”

 

James took both items from her. “Mission parameters accepted,” he replied.

 

There was a GPS in the duffel bag Ellie had taken from her apartment. She pulled it out and took a moment to check the rest of the contents. The money was all present and accounted for. Ellie had been squirrelling away money whenever she could for the next time she needed to bug out. After she started dating Rudi, she upped the savings, in case Rudi was willing to come with her.

 

Besides the money and the GPS, there was a Glock 9mm handgun, an extra magazine, two boxes of ammunition, three fake driver’s licenses from three different states, a fake passport, her  _ real _ passport (also technically fake), a leather jacket with kevlar lining, and about six months worth of antidepressants.

 

“You said no guns,” James said, mildly accusatory as she took the gun out and clipped the holster to the back of her jeans before shrugging the leather jacket over it.

 

“I said no guns in the apartment,” Ellie corrected.

 

“You know how to use that?” he pressed.

 

“ _ Yes _ ,” Ellie retorted. “I’ve had concealed carry permits in three states so far.”

 

James eyed her sidelong and did not comment. Ellie chose a driver’s license out of Pennsylvania with a last name of Boyd with a matching CHL before getting into the driver’s seat and starting the engine.

 

James got into the passenger seat and gave her another sidelong look. “What is our destination?” he asked.

 

“Buffalo,” Ellie replied, pulling out onto the interstate. 

 

“Buffalo,” James repeated in a flat voice. Perhaps he just wanted to confirm, or he was expressing disbelief, Ellie couldn’t tell.

 

“There’s a guy there who does documents,” she told him. “You need papers. A driver’s license, at the very least. Maybe a passport. Gives us options.”

 

“You trust him?” he asked, ripping open the bag of jerky.

 

“He’s been making papers for me for the last thirty-two years, so yeah,” Ellie said. “Also he’s like… us. You know.  _ Gifted _ . He tries to stay off the radar. Gives our kind a discount.”

 

She saw James blink and turn towards her with a line carved between his brows. “Us?” he asked. “Our kind? I was made like this. You were born this way.”

 

“The ‘how’ doesn’t matter,” Ellie told him. “Trust me. When it comes down to us verses them, no one cares about the ‘how.’”

 

James fell silent and didn’t speak for the rest of the drive.

 

XxxXxxX

 

It didn’t take them long to get to Buffalo, just a few hours, but it was a silent ride. At some point James fell asleep, leaning against the door with his arms crossed over his chest. He would occasionally twitch and clench his jaw, and he woke up after only half an hour, tensing until he remembered where he was.

 

Ellie didn’t comment on this, or on anything else. The mind-numbing activity of driving made it easy for her to just think about nothing.

 

Her stomach was growling by the time they got to Buffalo. She knew that James had to be just as hungry, if not more. She didn’t feel like eating, but it would do noone any good to starve herself. It was a good thing that Nico worked out of the back of a grocery store.

 

The faded awning of the squat corner building with peeling white paint had, at some point, read “Antonelli and Sons.” It hadn’t been legible since Ellie had first been here, over thirty years ago. She parked in the alley behind the store and grabbed her duffel bag. James eased out of the SUV and looked around.

 

“I’ll meet you inside,” he murmured at Ellie, and then disappeared around the side of the building.

 

Ellie shrugged and made her way to the front door. A bell chimed cheerily as she entered, and a dark-haired teenager looked up from where she was surfing the internet on her phone. The girl eyed Ellie suspiciously.

 

“Can I help you?” she asked in a surly voice.

 

Ellie pulled a battered business card out of her wallet and handed it to the girl. She took it, studied it far more closely than strictly warranted, and then pushed a button under the counter. She then gestured towards the back with her head.

 

Ellie walked past the shelves of off-brand and generic packages to the door that said “employees only” on a crooked sign. It swung open easily when she pushed it. There was a short hall with a stockroom at the end. Ellie crossed the stockroom to an unmarked door in the corner. She knocked twice.

 

The door opened a crack and a man’s voice asked, “Who is it?”

 

“It’s Elle, Nico,” Ellie replied. “Open up.”

 

“Elle?” The door swung open to reveal a stoop-shouldered man in his upper sixties, a pair of coke-bottle glasses perched on his bulbous nose. He had a shock of steel gray hair streaked liberally with white. “Elle! What are you doing here already,  _ mia bellezza _ ? You came, what, five years ago? Six?”

 

“Seven,” Ellie reminded him, smiling tightly. “Something came up.”

 

“Come in, come in,” Nico said, waving her into the room. Inside was a long table taking up one entire wall, two chairs, and a blue square of fabric hanging from pushpins. The table was covered in equipment and tools and photography accoutrements. “Please, sit,” Nico went on, waving towards one of the chairs. “New papers already? Licence? Passport? Both?”

 

“Both, but not for me,” Ellie explained. “The ones you gave me last time are still good. I have a friend. He’s not exactly street legal, if you know what I mean?”

 

“ _ Sí _ , yes, of course,” Nico replied, nodding. “He is one of us, no? Going underground?”

 

“We both are, for the moment,” Ellie replied, tight-lipped.

 

“I see,” Nico said slowly. “You go to Zion?”

 

“Zion’s not real, Nico,” Ellie chided. “You should know better than that.”

 

“You say that because you have not seen it,  _ mia belleza _ ,” Nico retorted. “But you know that there is believing without seeing.”

 

“Have you ever talked to anyone who's  _ been _ to Zion?” Ellie challenged. “No one who’s gone looking for it has ever been heard from again.”

 

“They say Zion is safest place for our kind,” Nico said. “So why would you want to leave?”

 

“I don’t know, maybe to help others get there?” Ellie snapped. She waved her hand. “Sorry. Forget it. We just need the papers, please.”

 

“Alright, alright,” Nico grumbled, adjusting his spectacles. “Where is this ‘friend’ of yours?”

 

There was a quiet rap of knuckles on wood. Nico looked up and jumped, holding a hand to his heart. “ _ Mio Dio _ !” he exclaimed.

 

Ellie slowly rotated around in her spinny chair to find James standing in the open doorway, an uncertain expression on his face. “How’d you get past the girl in the front?” she asked curiously.

 

“Came through a hatch from the roof,” he replied.

 

“This your friend, Elle?” Nico demanded, pulling his glasses down his nose so he could peer over them at James. “He sneaks like a thief.”

 

“He’s not a thief,” Ellie assured him. “He’s just… skilled.”

 

“Fine, fine, but you pay for him if he takes things,” Nico said with a sniff. “What happened? Why do you go underground so soon?”

 

“Hydra,” Ellie said tightly. 

 

Nico fully removed his glasses. “Ah, yes. Hydra. I have been very busy this last week. Many of our kind go underground because of Hydra. It is not a good time for us,  _ mia bellezza _ .”

 

“When has it ever been a good time for us?” Ellie replied.

 

“This is true,” Nico admitted. He opened a drawer and pulled out a stack of passport books of various colors held together by a rubber band. “I will do full package for your friend. What country you want from? American? I have American, Italian, French…” 

 

“Russian,” James surprised Ellie by saying. She knew he spoke fluent Russian, but she hadn’t expected him to choose that nationality. He looked at her. “You should get German papers.”

 

Ellie frowned. She took a breath to ask a question, stopped, thought for a moment, and then nodded. “Okay. Nico, I need a German passport, too.”

 

Nico nodded and peered up at James near-sightedly before remembering himself and putting his glasses back on. “Pictures first. Use the wash room. Clean yourself up. You look like trash.”

 

His bluntness startled Ellie enough that she had to laugh, and then she clapped her hand over her mouth. “Sorry,” she told James. He gave her an unamused expression. She sobered and gave him a more serious expression. “He wants you to shave and pull your hair back. It’ll help make you look different.”

 

James frowned and reached up with his flesh hand to rub his jaw, feeling the stubble there. He dropped his hand and nodded tightly before vanishing from the doorway. Ellie swiveled back around to look at Nico. 

 

“Nico, we need phones, too. You have any?”

 

He gestured toward a drawer with his elbow. “There.”

 

Ellie opened the drawer and found a stack of prepaid phones, all of them opened and re-packaged. She took the top two, opened them, and plugged them in to charge. When she went to sit back down, her stomach growled loudly.

 

Nico looked up, frowning, and then shooed her away. “We take photos and then you go. Get food. Come back in the morning. I have your papers then.”

 

“Sounds good, thanks,” Ellie said, and then reached into her duffel bag. She began to count out $500 bundles of twenties.

 

“No,” James said from the doorway. Ellie looked up and her eyes widened. With his hair pulled back in a tail and the proto-beard gone, he looked even more like the pictures in the history books. James had his backpack in his hand. He reached into the pack and pulled out several thin stacks of $100 bills. 

 

“I have money,” he said, and offered it to Nico.

 

“Where did you get that?” Ellie demanded. “I looked through your bag when you first showed up at the apartment!”

 

“In the lining,” James explained.

 

Nico took the money and counted it out. He looked over his glasses at James. “Hmm,” he said. “Maybe not a thief. But you still sneak.”

 

James insisted on scouting out the entire motel, and then their room twice before he felt safe enough to settle down at the table and take inventory. He had everything spread out in front of him: his weapons, Ellie’s gun, all of their money, ammunition, Ellie’s laptop, even her medications. When he had come across those in her bag, he’d merely read the label, nodded to himself, and set the orange bottles to one side without comment.

 

Ellie sat cross-legged on the bed and watched him work. She should feel… something. Something more than just tired and hungry. Something more than the cold rage deep in her belly. Rudi was dead. Rudi had been murdered. But it didn’t feel real. Even though Ellie had seen the body, it still didn’t feel real.

 

She’d had another lover, between Armin and Rudi, when she lived in California and had worked as a pediatric nurse. He had died, too. Dragged into the street and beaten to death because of the color of his skin.

 

She was beginning to see a pattern.

 

They were all dead, and she hadn’t been able to say goodbye to any of them. Was this what her life was going to be like? An endless cycle of loss?

 

She startled when James suddenly appeared in front of her, holding something out towards her. She looked up at his face and then down at his hand, the metal one, bare of the glove he’d kept over it all day. He was holding a cloudy glass half full of water.

 

“You’ll dehydrate yourself,” he told her, still holding out the water.

 

“What?” she asked, her numbed brain not comprehending.

 

“You’ve been crying since you sat down,” he explained gently. “You need to rehydrate.”

 

Ellie’s hand flew up to her face and found it was, indeed, wet. She hadn’t even noticed. There were wet spots on the thighs of her jeans. She sniffed through a suddenly-congested nose, wiped her face on her sleeve, and took the water. “Thanks,” she muttered, and drank a few sips.

 

James drifted off to the other side of the room, out of Ellie’s range of sight, but she didn’t look around to see what he was doing. She really didn’t care. So when he came back with a box of crackers and a jar of crunchy peanut butter, she stared at him again. She didn’t even remember buying those things.

 

“High protein content,” James explained, putting the crackers on the bed next to her. “Drink the water. All of it.” Ellie blinked a few times at him, and then complied. He took the glass back and used a knife he summoned from nowhere to scoop peanut butter into the cup. He filled it the rest of the way up with milk, that she also didn’t remember buying, and stirred it the best he could with the knife before handing it back.

 

It was chunky and gritty and not pleasant, but it made the cramps in Ellie’s stomach go away and she felt clear-headed enough to realize she was dead-tired. James stared at her until she’d eaten a handful of the crackers and then she curled up on top of the bedspread and fell into a deep sleep.

 

XxxXxxX

 

Ellie startled awake to a light tapping at the motel room door. She heard James scrape his chair back before she even opened her eyes and lifted her head. When she rolled over she saw him prowl towards the door, one of his pistols in his right hand. He paused a moment at the door, listening, then peered out the peephole. 

 

“ _ Yebat' menya _ ,” he muttered to himself, and then unlocked the door. Ellie sat up, confused. Nico never delivered the finished papers, so who could possibly be at the door that James would let in? James lowered his gun and swung the door just wide enough for her to see Jamar standing on the doorstep.

 

_ Shit _ . Ellie had completely forgotten about Jamar. She hadn’t seen him since she left him on the sidewalk to go back into the apartment after James. Where the hell had he been?

 

“Ellie in there?” Jamar asked in a strangely tense voice. Ellie felt her spine straighten. She had never heard Jamar sound stressed. Nervous, yes. Angry, definitely. But never stressed. He was dead. What did the dead have to stress about.

 

James didn’t reply. He swung the door open a little wider and poked his head out, scanning the area. Something made him tense. Now Ellie was starting to feel wound-up.

 

“What the hell is going on?” she demanded in a sleep-thick voice. James stepped back from the door to let Jamar step inside. The young man edged to the side, revealing the person standing behind him.

 

Part of Ellie had considered the possibility, of course. It had happened before, after all. Still, it was a part that she hadn’t paid much attention to, rather on purpose. Because the sight of Rudi standing there in the doorway, haloed by that lightless shine, was almost too much for Ellie to handle.

 

A dry, wretched sob escaped her before she could stop it. Rudi took a few steps into the room and stopped, wringing her hands together. Ellie pressed her hand to her mouth as if to stifle any more sounds.

 

Rudi looked over her shoulder at Jamar. “I don’t--” she said. “Can I… will I be able to touch her?”

 

“Yeah,” Jamar said in that same strained voice.

 

Rudi turned back to Ellie and crossed the rest of the room, sitting gingerly on the bed next to Ellie. Ellie kept her hand clamped over her mouth, staring at Rudi from watery eyes. Rudi hesitated a long moment, and then reached out to gently put her hand atop Ellie’s, propped against the bed. Ellie could feel Rudi, present and solid, but without heat, without any temperature at all, like she was a thing, and  _ object _ , not the woman she loved.

 

“Hi,” Rudi said softly, staring down at their hands.

 

Ellie uncovered her mouth, tears spilling down her cheeks. “Hi,” she said in a strained voice.

 

Rudi still didn’t look at Ellie’s face. She patted Ellie’s hand. “I’m okay, you know,” she said, barely above a whisper. “It’s okay. It wasn’t your fault.”

 

“I should have been there,” Ellie whispered. “I shouldn’t have left you.”

 

Rudi patted her hand again. “Then Hydra would have recaptured James,” she said, still not meeting Ellie’s eye. “You saved him.”

 

“I should have saved you, too,” Ellie replied.

 

“It’s not your fault,” Rudi told her again. “It’s okay. I’m not mad at you, Ellie.”

 

“I’m sorry.” Ellie barely managed to hold back the tears enough so she could speak.

 

Rudi’s hand tightened over hers. “You don’t need to apologize, baby.” she assured Ellie.

 

Ellie reached out with her free hand to capture a lock of Rudi’s hair between her fingers. It was as smooth and silky as it had been in life. “I love you,” she told the other woman. “I will never stop loving you.”

 

“I know,” Rudi said, nodding. She was silent for a long moment, and Ellie was almost afraid to speak. “Baby, will you do something for me?”

 

“Anything,” Ellie said almost before Rudi was done talking.

 

Rudi lifted her head, finally meeting Ellie’s gaze. Her dark eyes were dry, her expression hard, chiseled from stone. “I want you to burn them,” she said in a cold voice. “All of them. Burn them to the ground.”

 

That deep, cold rage in the pit of Ellie’s stomach surged upward, filling her chest. She felt her tears freeze to her skin, trails of frost down her cheeks. “I will,” she promised. “All of them. I won’t stop.”

 

Rudi nodded. “You haven’t seen them, Ellie. Not all of them. There are so many. The dead. Hydra killed them all. They’re angry. They want revenge.” She touched Ellie’s cheek, brushing away the frozen tears. “They’ll help you if you ask.”

 

“What about you?” Ellie asked, her voice flat. “Will you help me?”

 

Rudi expression softened. “I can’t, baby. I’m not like them. I’m not strong. I’m already so tired. I only stayed so I could say goodbye.”

 

Ellie swallowed thickly. “I don’t want to say goodbye. Not yet.”

 

“I know, baby,” Rudi crooned. “I know it hurts. I’m sorry. I don’t want to leave you, but I can’t stay. Not like this.” She smoothed Ellie’s hair back from her face. “I love you. So much. I’m so happy we found each other. I love every moment we had together. I always will. No matter what.”

 

Ellie nodded, but there were no more tears. They couldn’t break through the wall of ice around her heart. “The old order has passed away,” she whispered. Rudi smiled faintly. “Welcome them into paradise,” Ellie went on. “Where there will be no sorrow, no weeping or pain, but fullness of peace and joy.”

 

“Thank you,” Rudi breathed, and leaned forward to press a kiss, like a benediction, to Ellie’s forehead. Ellie closed her eyes, committing the feeling of Rudi’s lips to memory, one last time. When she opened her eyes, Rudi was gone.

 

Ellie stared straight ahead at the wall, suddenly acutely aware of her surroundings but unable to move, or speak. She heard James stir from where he had been standing by the door, saw him out of the corner of her eye, step towards her and then stop. After a moment’s hesitation, he returned to the table. Jamar followed.

 

“Sorry for bailing on you guys,” Jamar told James in a low voice. “I didn’t want to leave Rudi alone. She was real scared at first.”

 

“It’s fine,” James told him shortly. “You did good.”

 

Ellie stayed where she was for a while, uncaring of how much time had passed, letting the cold rage fill her up, killing all of her warmth, all of her emotions, until there was nothing left but the ice. She got to her feet without speaking and went into the bathroom. She turned on the faucet at the sink to wash her face, but when she put her hands under the water, it froze on contact with her skin.

 

She looked up at her reflection in the mirror. Her lips were tinged blue and there was a scarlet ring around the black irises of her eyes. Her breath clouded against the mirror, leaving frost crystals wherever it touched.

 

She had only seen herself like this once before, and it would only get worse if she didn’t get herself back under control.

 

She gripped the edge of the sink, the ceramic creaking ominously under her fingers. She focused on her breathing. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. Again. Over and over. Gather the rage, the ice, draw it like poison from a wound. Draw it back to the darkness at the pit of her stomach where it belonged.

 

It was a struggle, but the color returned to her face, the red fading from her eyes. She felt her skin temperature return to something resembling normal, and the ice in the sink melted. She leaned down, splashing it over her face. When she dried her face, she was once more under control. She couldn’t lose herself like that, not after what happened the first time.

 

She was still wearing the same clothes she’d worn when Hydra attacked their apartment. They smelled like smoke and blood. Ellie stripped them off, down to her bra and underwear, and kicked them into a corner of the bathroom.

 

Ellie left the bathroom and crossed the motel room to her duffel bag. She heard Jamar make a choking sound and then, “ _ Fucking hell _ , man!” She ignored him. There was a single change of clothing at the bottom of her duffel. Just as she finished dressing, the motel phone rang.

 

The three of them stared at it for several seconds before Ellie finally reached over and picked it up, holding it to her ear. “Hello?” she said cautiously.

 

_ “Elle, it’s Nico” _ the forger rasped into the phone.  _ “You must come quick.” _

 

“Nico? What is it?” Ellie demanded.

 

_ “They are here,” _ Nico whispered. The line clicked, and then went to a dial tone. 

 

“ _ Shit _ !” Ellie spat, and slammed the phone down onto the cradle hard enough to crack. She spun around. “We gotta go,” she told James curtly.

 

He was already on his feet, tucking his pistols into the back of his waistband. “What is it?” he asked softly.

 

“Hydra found Nico,” Ellie said, grabbing her kevlar-reinforced jacket and her gun. “He knows too much. We can’t let him talk.”

 

There was a strange expression on James’ face. Sad, almost. Pity. He knew what Hydra would do to Nico. So did Ellie. She had to rescue the forger.

 

Or kill him before he could talk.


End file.
